Just a Little Lie
by Morivanim
Summary: <html><head></head>Eric Abrax had a normal life until Harry Potter brought the dead back to life. Now Draco Malfoy must fight to stay dead so that Eric can live.  Rated T for language</html>
1. Jenny

The muted sound of metal hitting dry wall was what woke Jenny every morning at 7:01 precisely. Groaning she pulled her covers away and put her feet directly into the waiting slippers on the floor beside her bed. Stretching and running her fingers through her knotted hair Jenny made her way to the bathroom and locking the door behind her began getting ready for the day. Exactly 27 minutes later the handle on the door was violently being shaken and there was a pounding on the door.

"Jenny hurry up I'm gonna be late!" a male voice yelled through the door.

"Not my fault." Jenny yelled back. Jenny could hear her roommate grumbling and tapping his foot impatiently. She put away her hair straightener and Jenny smiled as she opened the bathroom door. "You know Eric if you got up when your alarm went off you wouldn't be late every day." Her room mate merely growled and pushed his way into the bathroom. Jenny laughed and made her way back to her room to change into her clothes.

After she finished dressing Jenny began to make breakfast as she watched her tall blonde roommate rush around trying to find the books he'd need for his classes. As he ran out of the apartment he yelled back to Jenny, "Coffee shop 4:30."

Both Jenny and Eric attended Oxford University. Jenny was pre-med while Eric was studying law. They had met in their freshman year seminar class, and become fast friends. They had recently moved off campus together unfortunately their schedules were both very busy and other than Eric's mad dash in the morning they hardly ever saw each other. They did however meet everyday for coffee to insure they never fell out of touch.

Jenny cleaned up her dishes gathered her things and headed off to classes. Unlike her roommate Jenny had no reason to rush since her classes were held in a building much closer to their apartment.

Jenny took her usual seat in her Drug Psychology class, and opened her note book and immediately began doodling, until the professor walked in.

"Alright so I have some good news and some bad news." The professor began, getting everyone's attention. " Do you want the good news or the bad news fist?" The class room erupted in a chorus of good that the professor quickly ended with a wave of his hand. "Alright the good first. I'll be heading off to a conference for the next 2 weeks." Once again the class erupted with noise that the professor once again put an end to. "Now for the bad news." Ignoring the groans the professor continued, "You will be working on a project with a partner while I'm gone." The professor sat back and watched as the students all began whispering to their friends attempting to make their own pairs. He let them dream for a bit before he continued. "And I will be picking your partners." These groans were much harder to ignore, but he did anyway and began reading off the list of pairs that he had ready.

Jenny sighed and turned to the girl sitting next to her "great, I'll probably get stuck with Richard."

The girl looked across the room at the boy sitting and attempting to balance a pencil in between his lips and nose and a flush of pity over took her"I'm sorry for you honey." She replied placing a hand on her shoulder. The two then turned their attention back to the professor who was rattling off names.

"…Martin and Chelsea, Kelly and Jane, Richard and.." Jenny closed her eyes and held her breath, "Lela…" The girl who had her hand on Jenny's shoulder dropped her hand and jaw. Jenny let out her breath and turned to Lela, "Sorry" she whispered before listening once again for her name. "Ben and Maria, Harry and Jenny." Jenny looked around not ever having heard Harry's name. She scanned the crowd and found a pair of green eyes doing the same. Jenny put on a slight smile and waved at her partner. "Alright go meet with your partner and I'll explain the project."

* * *

><p>"You're late Mr. Abrax." The professor stated as a tall blonde boy tried to quietly sneak into the room.<p>

"Sorry Professor." Eric said before taking his seat and slumping down embarrassed for what had to be the millionth time. For some reason he could just not make it to this class on time, and of coarse this was the only class where the teacher cared if you were late. Every other professor in the school could care less after all "it's your education therefore it's your choice to show up or not" but Professor Line didn't seem to have gotten that memo.

"Mate you've got to get up earlier," The brown haired boy he had sat next to whispered.

"You don't think I know that?" he whispered back while taking out his books.

"It's never a good thing when the professor knows you by name." the boy mumbled before turning his attention back to the professor. Eric had to keep from smiling at that statement. No matter how well the teacher might know his name it made no difference, after all it wasn't like it was his real name. Eric Abrax was a tall blonde haired, blue eyed muggle boy with full pink lips and a slightly large nose. His features were very soft and round and he was tan, even in the middle of the harsh English winters. He enjoyed football, painting and the occasional out of control party. He was also a figment of the imagination. Draco Malfoy was an average height blonde haired grey eyed wizard with pointed features and a small nose who couldn't tan if he painted himself brown. He did love football and painting and all but lived for the out of control parties that his hectic schedule forbid him from attending. No one had even once suspected that the two were in fact one in the same, which made life for both Eric and Draco very easy.

After the war in which Lord Voldemort had been vanquished by one Harry Potter, Draco was left with nothing. His father was given the Dementor's Kiss and his mother was imprisoned. Malfoy Manor had been turned to rubble during a battle and all of the Malfoy funds had been seized. Though Draco had no charges against him, and it would have been very easy to get his money back and build another home Draco no longer felt any want or need to be associated with the wizarding world. He had been put in hiding during the war itself, his father still concerned with keeping the Malfoy line going, so it had been very easy to place a glamour on himself and simply vanish. People had searched for him for two years but when he could not be found he was proclaimed a casualty of the war and even once had gone to see his own headstone. Without anyone looking for him Draco was free, he chose to keep his new identity, he had grown used to it over the years, he had a life built and he had no intention of leaving it.

'Eric' had three classes that day ending at 1:30. He grabbed a quick lunch in the dining hall and stopped back at the apartment to drop off his books and change for work. Not having gotten the Malfoy assets back 'Eric' was paying his own way through university by working in a small café and pawning a few of the things he had nicked from his home before leaving.

By no means did Eric actually enjoy working at the café, the customers were mostly nasty, he hated everyone he worked with, he spilled scalding hot coffee on himself at least once a day due to clumsiness, and most importantly it was work, and thanks to his previous life as one Draco Malfoy, Eric despised having to do anything so difficult as working. On the plus side working at the café had very flexible hours, gave Eric a free supply of coffee, a drink he was now addicted to, and the pay was surprisingly good, he also got fairly long breaks, which he used to sit and catch up with his roommate and best friend in the entire world. So Eric gritted his teeth and took the third degree burns and humiliation in stride.

* * *

><p>Jenny saw Harry get up from his seat as soon as the professor told them to meet with their partners so she stayed in her seat and waved at Lela as she trudged over to meet with her partner. Laughing to herself at her friend's misfortune Jenny was a little surprised when a body occupied the seat next to her.<p>

"Hi, I'm Harry Potter." The boy who had sat down next to her introduced himself holding out a hand for her to shake.

Jenny grabbed the hand, "Hi, Jenny Little." She said smiling just before turning her attention back to the professor who had begun describing the project.

"Now this is a fairly simple project, you will pick your absolute favorite drug, and write a research paper, about how it effects the brain and body and any medical conditions it could be used for, any side effects. Along with the paper you and your partner will turn in, you will also be building a model." The professor looked around at his students, who all had extremely confused faces on.  
>"What the hell kind of model could we be making?" Jenny asked in hushed tones glancing over at her new partner.<p>

"I have no clue." He answered, never taking his eyes off the professor.

The professor continued. "Your model can be of anything you want, as long as it relates to your project. You will be defending your model to the class, who will then decide its relevance. Now, have fun." With this the professor walked out of the class room, ending class a good 45 minutes early.

"Oookay." Jenny said turning to Harry. "The guy's nuts I swear."

"'Eh he's not as bad as some professors I've had." Harry told her a slight smile on his face at the memory of some of his more eccentric professors. "So got a favorite drug?" he asked.

"Not particularly, you?"

"Actually, yeah, Wellbutrin." Harry answered.

"Cool, what's it for?" Jenny asked opening her notebook and writing down the name of the drug."

"Depression." Harry told her.

"Okay, so did you want to work on the project now or.." Jenny trailed off.

"Actually I have a few other things I have to do. Think we could work on it tonight?"

"Sure, my roommate's got night class tonight so we could work at my place." Jenny offered.

"Okay." Jenny wrote down her address and gave a few vauge directions to get to her apartment and her and her partner went off on their own ways.

Looking at her watch Jenny saw it was 4:00, having nothing better to do, she figured she'd be a little early to her date with Eric and headed to the coffee shop he worked at.

Harry Potter was a name known around the world, but not at this University. Harry Potter was a little shorter than most boys his age. He had ink black hair and dark green eyes. He loved football, and helping people and had once gotten away with murder. The man Harry Potter had murdered was known as the Dark Lord, He Who Must Not Be Named and Voldermort. Harry Potter was a wizard, he was in fact the most famous wizard of his age, and a complete nobody at Oxford University, and that was the way he liked it.

Harry had done his duty in the massive war that had taken over the wizarding world. He had won. After defeating the Dark Lord and completing his education at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Harry had had multiple offers to attend several of the most prominent Wizarding Universities in the world for free, or maintain high rankng positions in the ministry without having to work his way up the ladder, Harry however, decided that he would rather leave the wizarding world and attend University like the normal boy he had always wished he'd been, and it worked

While Harry still maintained some ties with the Wizarding world, namely his friends and family only, he preferred the annonimity that the muggle world gave him. Which is why when his project partner in his Drug Psychology course had not stared at him in disbelief or even made any notion of him being important, Harry sighed a sigh of relief.

After setting up a time with his partner to meet and begin their project Harry left the classroom quickly, having to begin his shift at the school bookstore where he worked.

The little bell over the door at A'latte café rang as Jenny walked in the door. Looking over to the counter she caught eyes with Eric and waved taking a seat at one of the tall two person tables in the corner. She pulled out one of her school books and a highlighter as she waited for Eric to start his break.

A half hour later a distinct thud from the chair next to her and a stained apron being thrown over her book alerted Jenny to the fact that Eric's break had finally started. Looking down at the apron she found a clear patch and drew a smiley face with her highlighter before looking up at her friend. "Having fun at work?" She asked.

Eric rolled his eyes, "tons, he replied. So, you got out of class early." He commented.

"Yeah, professor's on his way out of town so he gave us an assignment and left. Speaking of which you still got your class tonight?"

"Yeah, why? You bringing a guy home?" Eric asked smirking.

"Yeah jealous?" Jenny said winking at her friend.

"Oh so much." Eric rolled his eyes.

"We got a partner project assigned so my partner's coming over, to work on it." Jenny told him.

"I take it you're not working with Lela." Eric stated.

"Nope, some guy I didn't even know was in the class. His name's Harry."

"Is he cute?" Eirc asked.

Jenny thought about it for a moment before answering, "He's not bad. Kinda short, nice smile though."

"Nice, I'll make sure to walk home slowly." Jenny laughed at Eric. The two continued talking about the trivial things going on in their lives before Eric's manager yelled at him to get back to work. As Eric went back to work Jenny went back to their apartment to get the rest of her work done so that she could work on her Drug project without worry.


	2. Draco

When Harry's last class of the day ended he packed up his things and headed off campus to meet his partner. He arrived at an average looking apartment building and checked the address one more time before looking for his partner's name on the buzzer. Jenny let him in and told him which floor to head up to.

Jenny was standing at the door waiting for him when he finally made it up to the fifth floor. She greeted him and ushered him inside, telling him he could put his stuff wherever he liked. The apartment was an average college student's apartment. Every piece of furniture was clearly from Ikea or unwanted furniture from a family member's house. There was one couch a tv and two desks in the main room, both desks were covered in piles of books and paper and there were several pairs of jackets and shoes cluttering some of the floor space.

"Sorry for the mess, my roommate's a little bit like a tornado."

Harry smiled as he threw his own jacket over the couch. "Not a problem, I've been likened to a full scale hurricane before."

They shared a somewhat awkward laugh before Jenny invited him to sit on their couch so that they could start on the project.

After working on the project for sometime and getting the basic outline for their paper done the conversation soon dissipated into more friendly topics. "So what's your major?" Jenny soon found herself asking.

"I'm a Psych major, minor in neuroscience. You?" Harry asked.

"Pre-med."

"Wow, that's impressive." Harry said wide eyed.

"Yeah, it's a shit ton of work that's for sure."

"It must suck watching your roommate go off partying while you're stuck working."

"I'm sure it would, but I got lucky, Eric's Pre-law so he gets about as much party time as I do." Jenny said smiling.

"Eric your boyfriend?" Harry asked.

Jenny laughed, "uh… no he's not, but if he ever changes his mind I'm all for it."

"Changes his mind? Unrequited love?" Harry knew that joke all too well, Hermione often used it to piss off Ron.

"Sort of." Jenny answered.

"Good luck then, it takes a lot of skill to turn a gay man." Harry said watching a shocked look take over Jenny's face.

"How'd you know?" she asked.

Harry just smiled, "Psych major remember." Looking at the time Harry realized how late it was getting and told Jenny that he had to get home. As he gathered his things Harry and Jenny set up a second meeting time. Harry thanked Jenny for having him over and left.

* * *

><p>Jenny was sitting at the kitchen table with two cups of tea when Draco walked through the door half hunched over looking a little bit like death warmed over. He started on his was to his room until he caught sight of Jenny beaming at the table. Sighing he walked over to her. "Can't this wait for coffee tomorrow?" he asked. Jenny's only reply was handing him a hot cup of tea.<p>

Taking the tea Eric sat down, "Spill, and make it quick."

"I'm in love." Jenny said.

Draco took a big gulp of tea that burned his throat before talking. "He's cuter than you had remembered?"

"Much cuter, and he's funny, and crazy smart."

"Poli Sci major?" He asked.

"Psych major, Neuroscience minor."

"Congrats. Let me know where you're registered." Draco said sarcastically.

"He's coming over tomorrow night again sooooo…" Jenny trailed off.

"Sooo… I'll be at the library."

Jenny jumped up and hugged Draco, "Thank you! Now, go to bed grumpy."

Draco mumbled something along the lines of "crazy bitch" and made his way to bed.

The next morning the sharp grating beeping of his alarm clocked caused a knee jerk reaction in Draco to reach his hand out and smash it against the wall, as he did everyday. After the awful noise stopped Draco would have as normal rolled back over and gone back to sleep, unfortunately this time the noise did not stop. After a few minutes of trying to ignore the sound he angrily got out of his comfortably warm bed and stomped over to the other side of the room where the offending object lay beeping loudly. Picking up the alarm clock Draco tried to turn it off manually but it still wouldn't stop. Not being a functioning morning person Draco took the alarm clock out into their kitchen and pulled out metal meat tenderizer and swiftly tenderized the clock. Smiling to himself at being able to stop the annoying racket Draco was shocked out of his happiness as Jenny appeared from out of the bathroom and commented, " Shouldn't you be on your way to class?" Eyes wide Draco glanced at the clock on the microwave and saw that he was in deed late and screamed before beginning an extra fast version of his morning run around routine.

Draco made it to class only a few minutes later than normal and lucky for him this professor didn't feel the need to mention every time he was late so he managed to take a seat in the back of the class without any embarrassment, however he had also showed up without any of his correct books for the day. In his mad rush to leave the apartment Draco had grabbed his back pack filled with the books for his Tuesday, Thursday classes and not his Monday, Wednesday classes. As he realized this Draco groaned and prayed that the day wouldn't get any worse.

Draco's day got worse. Apparently unbeknownst to Draco it was in fact call on Eric Abrax day, so naturally every class celebrated this holiday by asking him all sorts of questions he didn't know and couldn't look up thanks to his screw up that morning. Draco was seriously beginning to hate Eric and regret ever thinking the boy up in the first place, he regretted even more as call on Eric Abrax day became Eric Abrax is on toilet duty day at work. Some mom had brought her sick kid with her as she got her daily caffeine fix and as sick kids often do he vomited in mass quantity, thankfully the kid had at least made it to the bathroom, if not to the toilet. The one bright light in Draco's day was that at 4:30 he would be on break sitting with Jenny complaining about it all.

Feeling a familiar buzzing in his pants, Draco stopped his moping for a moment to check the text message he received.

"_Sorry can't make coffee, bio report due at 6"_ and with that Draco was positive that everything bad, aside from actual physical injury, that could happen to him that day had happened.

Draco's dismal mood was beginning to lighten as he worked on his homework in the quiet library. It seemed that his earlier assumption that nothing else could go wrong for the rest of the day was true. He managed to get about half of his work done when fate decided that it wasn't quite done messing with him. Suddenly Draco found himself soaking wet, homework ruined, rummaging through his drenched backpack looking for his keys.

After finding his keys Draco stomped up the stairs avoiding the elevator believing it would crash should he choose to use it. Finally reaching the door to his apartment he groaned as he heard laughter coming from inside. He had completely forgotten that Jenny was meeting with her partner and that he had promised not to be there. For a moment he thought about just going in and hiding in his room, he wouldn't be in the way, he placed his key in the door and was just about to open it when he heard part of the conversation that Jenny and this boy were having.

"You sure your roommate's not going to walk in and see this?" the muffled

voice said.

"I'm sure, Eric said he had a big paper to work on. He'll be in the library just about all night."

"Good…"

Draco groaned and removed his key from the door. The world was clearly out to get him. All he wanted to do was get into some dry clothes grab a cup of tea and lie down in his bed and he couldn't because his roommate was shagging some guy on their couch. So slinging his back pack over his shoulder Draco trudged back down the stairs and headed for the nearest bar, at least alcohol would help him erase the image of Jenny riding some guy in the middle of the apartment.

* * *

><p>Harry laughed as another Claymation zombie was blown to bits by Bruce Camble and his boom stick. When he had seen the DVD sitting by the TV he had immediately started gushing about how much he loved the Evil Dead trilogy, and nearly begged to borrow the movie. Unfortunately the DVD wasn't Jenny's it was her roommates.<p>

"I can't really loan his stuff out, he's not big on sharing, but if you want we could watch it." Jenny had told him. Harry spouted some half hearted remarks about how they should work on their project, however Jenny reminded him that they had two weeks and could work on it the next night instead as she placed the movie into the player.

"You sure your roommate's not going to walk in and see this?" he asked as Bruce revved his chainsaw.

"I'm sure, Eric said he had a big paper to work on. He'll be in the library just about all night."

"Good. I wouldn't want to get you in trouble for using his stuff." Harry said.

"I think Eric would actually die of shock at me watching this before he could get mad." Jenny said giving a confused look at the screen.

"I still can't believe you're in college and haven't seen this series. You'd love the second movie."

Jenny laughed, "Eric says the same thing all the time. He thinks I'm committing some kind of awful sin by not having seen the whole thing."

"You are." Harry said matter-of-factly. Smiling he turned back to watch the rest of the film.


	3. Harry

Draco had stayed at the bar for a few hours before heading back to his apartment praying that it was safe for him to return. He stopped at the door a moment and listened. Not hearing anything coming from inside he figured it was indeed safe and opened the door. He looked around and noted that nothing was out of place, so they must have moved into the bed room. As Draco glanced by the TV he noticed that his favorite DVD case was left open and empty sitting on the floor. He ran over and grabbed it from the floor and began to storm towards Jenny's room but the thought that this mystery man could still be there caused him to stop and save his anger for the morning.

* * *

><p>When Harry got back to his own apartment his roommate was still up and sitting at the kitchen table typing furiously on his computer. "Hey" Harry said throwing his bag down by the door.<p>

His roommate looked up only momentarily, "Hey sorry man, can't talk. I've got 6 more pages to write before morning."

"Nice." Harry commented as he walked to the fridge and pulled out a labeled jug of juice and took a long swig from it. He put the jug back in the fridge and went to bed briefly wishing his procrastinating roommate good night and good luck.

Harry woke up exactly 1 minute before his alarm was set to go off. He turned off the alarm and got out of bed stretching. He grabbed his towel from its place on the floor and headed to the bathroom to get ready for the day.

Harry arrived early to his class as usual so he sat on the bench outside the room and waited for the class currently using the room to finish their lesson. To pass the time he brought out his text book and began to read ahead for the next class. He was deep into his reading when the class finally filed out. Harry marked his spot in the book and placed it back in his bag before heading into the class room. As he took his seat near the back of the class he noticed that a student and the professor had hung back to chat. He pulled his book back out so that it wouldn't seem as though he was eavesdropping as he listened to the conversation.

"You can't keep showing up late like this Mr. Abrax." The teacher said.

"I know. I'm not doing it on purpose I swear." The boy said.

"Yes, well be that as it may all these tardies are piling up and are begining to effect your grade."the teacher warned.

"Is there something I can do to bring it up?" the boy sounded scared.

The professor sighed and looked at the clock as he noticed a few other students joining Harry. "I'll see if I can come up with anything."he told the boy, before taking his brief case and heading to teach his next class.

Harry looked up over the top of his book and watched as the boy's shoulders dropped and he rubbed the bridge of his nose. Harry couldn't help but notice that the boy was rather attractive, he was about half a foot taller than Harry himself was, Harry being on the shorter side of the male population, and the boy was tan and blonde. He reminded Harry a bit of an American surfer boy, which was a look Harry very much appreciated. Harry's eyes followed the boy as he left the class room , cursing the existence of a fellow classmate as they passed by him blocking him from catching a glimpse of the boys backside.

"Damn it" he said under his breath.

"Damn what?" Harry jumped and turned to see his friend Gene taking a seat beside him.

"Shit you scared me." He said avoiding his question.

"Sorry." Gene shrugged as the professor walked in and began class.

Harry was just barely paying attention to the professor's lecture when a piece of paper was slipped in front of him.

_This is so boring!_

Harry chuckled to himself. _**Are you seriously passing notes?**_

_Yes. Now entertain me!_

Harry looked over at Gene and rolled his eyes._**How exactly am I supposed to entertain you?**_

_Tell me about your latest adventure _

_**Adventure?**_

_Yes._

_**I haven't had any adventures.**_

_ How have you not had any adventures?_

_**Professor Riley gave us a project so I've just been working on that… I could tell you about chemical imbalances causing depression if you want.**_

Gene looked over at Harry and gave him a lopsided look. _The point of note passing is to keep from hearing boring shit._

_**Well what do you want from me?**_Gene just handed the paper back to Harry with an expectant look on his face. Harry thought for a minute and then found exactly what would keep Gene's attention._** You know my project partner's kinda hot.**_

Gene grimaced and quickly scribbled a reply. _Now that's something I definitely don't want to hear about._

_**Too bad. I thought you might like her.**_

_ Nevermind continue._

Harry had to stifle a laugh. _**Her name's Jenny.**_

_Does she have a nice rack?_

Harry rolled his eyes and spent the rest of class telling Gene everything he wanted to know about Jenny, which mostly consisted of describing her various body parts.

* * *

><p>"Oh god, Eric!" Jenny exclaimed after hearing him tell her all about what he had gone through the day before. "You should have come straight home."<p>

"I tried, but I heard you and your partner" he said trying to keep a blush from entering his face.

"Heard us what?" Jenny asked.

"Fucking." Eric said bluntly.

"WHAT!" Jenny yelled, bringing the attention of more than a few of the customers in the coffee shop and earning Eric a glare from his manager. "We weren't fucking."

"Oh please I heard him 'you sure your roommate's not gonna walk in on us?' If that's not a we're having sex in the living room line I don't know what is." Eric said leaning back crossing his arms.

"That's what you heard?" Jenny asked laughing. " He was afraid you'd catch us watching your Evil Dead DVD. I mentioned you weren't the best sharer and he was afraid I'd get in trouble for touching your stuff. He's sweet, not horny."

Eric's face went red and he put his head in his hands. "You mean I could have been at home watching Evil Dead all night?"

"Yeah." Jenny said trying to stop laughing.

"Gah! Can life get any worse?" Eric asked.

"Yup." Jenny said causing Eric to look up at her. "You could be pregnant."

"Yeah been meaning to tell you about that, I am pregnant, and it's yours." Eric said sarcastically, rising from his seat.

"Where you going?" Jenny asked.

"Back to work, someone's got to pay for the abortion." Eric said grabbing his apron and heading behind the counter.

"Not funny!" Jenny yelled after him.

Eric just waved a hand flippantly at her and went back to work. Jenny finished her coffee and left the café to go to library.

Later that night Jenny and Eric were sitting on the couch watching TV with a bottle of cheap wine, when they heard the buildings buzzer. "Are you expecting someone?" Jenny asked looking over at the door.

"No, you?"

Jenny shook her head and got up to answer it. "Hello?"

"Hey Jenny, it's Harry."

Jenny's eyes shot open. "Hey I'll let you up." Jenny pressed the door open button and turned her back to the door facing Eric with a look of panic on her face. "Shit! I forgot we were gonna work again tonight." Jenny shot a pleading look at Eric who stood up with his hands held high.

"Don't worry I'll go to my room." Eric said walking into his room.

"Thank you!" Jenny said before rushing around trying to clean up as much as she could in the very few minutes it took for Harry to climb the stairs to their apartment.

* * *

><p>"Hey." Harry said as Jenny opened the door.<p>

"Hey" She replied as she let him come in.

Harry placed his jacket over the couch and as he did so noticed the two filled glasses of wine on the table. He raised an eyebrow and turned back to Jenny.

"Wine?" he asked.

"Oh yeah, Eric and I were having a glass after dinner. He's got a lot of work though so he's hauled up in his room." She explained.

"Doesn't he work at his desk?" Harry asked motioning to the two messy desks off to the side.

"Not really, he just throws his stuff there." Jenny lied as an explanation. "So should we get to work?"

"Uh, yeah." Harry said getting his books out of the bag he had brought with him

* * *

><p>Draco was a little miffed at having to be in his room for the remainder of the night but as long as he had his wine he could bare it. Draco looked on his nightstand to see where he had placed the glass when he remembered that he hadn't brought it with him. He walked to the door to run back out and grab it when he heard the familiar voice from last night asking questions.<p>

"Shit!" he exclaimed. He thought for a moment before deciding that he could still run out and grab the glass, and not ruin Jenny's night. So he opened the door and walked down the hall to their living room.

"Don't mind me just came to get my wine." Draco said announcing his presence. Both Jenny and her partner turned their heads to look at him and Draco stopped dead in place, unable to breathe.

That chin, that mouth, the nose, the eyes, the glasses, the hair, and more than anything that scar. He knew every inch of that face and seeing it now made Draco want to pee his pants and run as far away as possible. His hand instinctively went to his side searching for a wand that he's gotten rid of so long ago. Draco could feel all the blood in his body run cold, and time freeze as those piercing green eyes took him in.

Draco panicked, sure that he was done for. Harry Potter was sitting in his living room about to ruin the life he had built, about to let out the biggest secret he had ever had in his entire life.

As Harry stood up Draco desperately wished he had his wand back. He was shocked when he walked towards him, and flinched when Harry held out his hand and spoke.

"You must be Eric. It's nice to meet you."

Draco looked from his hand to his face, and took in the smile on Harry's features. Draco let out a breath he hadn't known he'd been holding. His glamour was still on, Harry had no idea who he was. Relieved at remembering this Draco put on a smile of his own and placed his hand in Harry's.

"You must be Jenny's partner, Harry. It's nice to meet you too." The two shook hands and Draco quickly moved to the table, He was still unnerved by Harry being near him so he grabbed his glass of wine and started to head back to his room. "Have fun working." He yelled back awkwardly.

Harry was ecstatic. It had to be his lucky day; here in Jenny's apartment was the boy he had seen in his classroom that morning. He was even better looking up close. Harry was momentarily mesmerized by the boy but quickly got his wits about him and stood up to greet the beauty.

"You must be Eric. It's nice to meet you." Harry said extending a hand. He was so busy taking in every feature of the boy before him that he missed the terrified look that had crossed Eric's face. The boy looked from his hand to his face a few times before grasping it in his own.

"You must be Jenny's partner Harry. It's nice to meet you too." The boy was quick to grab his glass and leave, and this Harry was not oblivious enough to miss. He stood behind the couch for a moment after the blonde disappeared.

"I don't think he likes me to much." Harry said, a tiny bit of sadness escaping into his voice.

"Nah, Eric's just a little awkward with new people." Jenny told him before motioning that he should come back to the couch. Harry sighed and made his way back to the couch.

* * *

><p>He tried to concentrate on the project, he really did, but just knowing that that beautiful boy was only a few feet away had Harry constantly looking in the direction of the room. More than once Jenny had caught him staring over her to the hallway, and each time Harry just blushed and looked back at the book he was highlighting.<p>

* * *

><p>Jenny had been a little miffed when Eric had left the room and interrupted her time with Harry, but as the night went on her anger disappeared entirely. She thought that she had been imagining it the first time she caught Harry staring at her, but when she caught him three more times she knew it was real and with each glance she became happier and happier and more confidant.<p>

By the time Harry had to get home Jenny had become so sure that Harry liked her that she had gotten up the courage to ask him to come over for dinner the next night. Harry had agreed much faster than she had expected, making her even more sure that he liked her back.

As soon as Harry was out of the apartment and on his way down the stairs Jenny literally jumped for joy and rushed into Eric's room to tell him the good news.


	4. Liam

When Jenny told Draco about her dinner with Harry the next night Draco immediately agreed to make plans to be gone before Harry showed up, he couldn't chance seeing him again. He'd nearly had a heart attack seeing him the first time, in fact he was still in shock from knowing that he and Harry attended the same school, and though he knew that it was an irrational fear, Draco was terrified for the first time that his glamorous might fail him, or that Harry would be able to see him. Draco Malfoy was supposed to be dead, not attending Muggle University. If anyone found out, he didn't know what would happen, and he had no intention of finding out either. Draco could only hope that once this project was over Harry and Jenny would quit hanging out, Jenny's crush would fade and Draco could go back to his nice safe life.

Knowing that he would be out of his apartment most of the night Draco had made plans with a few friends to go out for dinner and a few drinks. Liam was meant to pick Draco up about 20 minutes before Harry was scheduled to arrive, that way he would be well out of the way. Unfortunately he had not planned on Harry being half an hour early and Jenny being an hour late getting home, so Draco was stuck, alone, with Harry Potter, alone, in his apartment.

Draco had let Harry in and the two were now trapped in a very awkward moment. Draco desperately wanted to escape and prayed that Liam would buzz sooner rather than later.

"So you're an Evil Dead fan?" Harry finally said trying to break the tension.

"Huh? Oh yeah." Draco muttered and they fell back into an awkward silence. Draco began to stare at his shoes unable to find another safe place to look.

* * *

><p>Harry had been around a lot of awkward people in his life, most people were awkward when they knew who he was, and he was used to it. He was so used to it in fact that he was easily able to tell the difference between normal everyday awkwardness and please-go-away-I-really-don't-want-to-be-near-you awkwardness, and he was clearly getting the latter from Eric.<p>

Harry sighed as his attempt at small talk failed, and suddenly wished his teacher hadn't let them out early. At first he had been excited at the prospect of running into Eric before working with Jenny again, but this was not what he had expected. He had expected small talk maybe some laughter, not an epic silence that cut him to the core. He couldn't stand it, as he saw Eric taking a sudden interest in his own shoes Harry snapped.

"I'm sorry but have I done something to offend you?" Harry asked.

Eric's head snapped up and he gave Harry a look as though he had grown another head. "What? No." Eric answered.

"Then is there a specific reason you don't like me?" Harry asked point blank. Eric's facial expression grew even more shocked, but he didn't answer. "Right," Harry continued when he received no answer, "Well we've only got a few more days for this project and then you won't have to worry about seeing me again."

Eric rolled his eyes and spoke under his breath but Harry could clearly hear him. "Not if Jenny has anything to say about it." He said.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Harry said.

Eric seemed momentarily shocked that Harry had heard him before looking from the door to the clock. "She'll probably kill me for saying anything but, she likes you." Eric admitted, his shoulders relaxing the tiniest bit.

Harry was baffled, he thought he had been clear but apparently he hadn't. "Shit" was all he managed to say out loud.

"Yeah, so go ahead and make your move before she explodes, please." Eric said, although Harry didn't believe he meant to give his blessing.

Harry didn't know what to say so he blurted out the first thing he thought, "Doesn't she know I'm gay?"

* * *

><p>Draco was floored. The Harry Potter, Defeater of the Dark Lord, was gay. He had known Harry from the age of 11 and there had not once been a single sign. Okay well there had been that one time in fourth year when they had been fighting where he thought he felt something that wasn't a wand poking him in the leg as they rolled around, but Draco had chalked that up to one of those awkward unintentional moments. It did also explain the mass quantities of failed female relationships he had had, after all he and the girl Weasley had been perfect for each other and still hadn't worked out.<p>

When Draco's thoughts stopped racing and he once again found the ability to speak all he could find to say was "I guess not." He was saved from anything else being said in this particularly strange conversation by the door opening and Jenny stepping in from the other side.

"Eric, you still here? Oh! Harry, hi." Jenny said as she saw her roommate and her partner standing looking shocked in the middle of the kitchen.

"Hi," Harry was the first to speak. "Sorry I got here a little earlier than expected." Harry wasn't smiling, instead he looked as though he wanted to jump from his skin and run.

* * *

><p>Harry was no good at letting people down, especially when he had to work with them, so when Eric told him that Jenny liked him a near massive anxiety attack began building in the pit of his stomach. And Jenny walking in before he was able to fully process the information did nothing to help.<p>

As Jenny greeted the two he panicked and said the first thing that came to his mind. "Sorry I got here a little earlier than expected."

Jenny just smiled and began talking, unfortunately Harry could only catch every few words as he was still somewhat panicky about the whole thing.

* * *

><p>Draco watched as Harry clearly began to panic, and Jenny ignored all of it in favor of explaining why she was so late and apologizing that they would have to go out to eat instead. Watching Harry Potter sit panicking brought Draco right back to his years at Hogwarts and how he had tortured potter. It gave him a familiar sense of happiness for a moment that Draco had to shake off. As he came back to the present that joy of seeing Potter squirm dissipated and was replaced by a sorry feeling for Harry that Draco felt a strong urge to get rid of. So Draco did the only thing he could think of.<p>

* * *

><p>"You guys are welcome to join me and Liam tonight." He said without too much thought. He watched as Jenny tried to hold back the glare she desperately wanted to throw at him. He just shrugged at her and looked to Harry for his answer.<p>

Harry had somehow managed to hear Eric's offer and shot him a look of thanks before quickly responding that he thought it was a great idea. He tried not to notice the strain in Jenny's voice as she agreed and excused her self to go get ready.

When she left Harry turned to Eric, "Thank you so much." He said breathing a sigh of relief.

"Don't mention it." Eric said without smiling.

Harry nodded and rested his head in his hands. "Shit" he murmured. Having finally wrapped his head completely around the fact that Jenny liked him Harry knew exactly what would happen next. He would act like a bumbling fool around her, jumping every time she came a little too close, things would soon be so awkward that they would both be praying for this project to be over with so that they would never have to see each other again, except for in class, where they would sit on opposite sides of the room. The most depressing part of this all for Harry was that he had lost any chance of getting to know Eric before even getting on greeting terms with the boy.

Heaving one last sigh Harry pulled his head out of his hands and began nervously rubbing at his thighs. He looked over at Eric who was giving him a very peculiar look, as though he was studying him. "What?" Harry asked.

Eric pursed his lips and looked as though he was about to say something just before a buzzing noise interrupted him. Eric quickly answered with a soft "nothing" before going to the buzzer by the door and talking to who Harry assumed was Liam.

"Hey man, come on up." Eric opened their front door and walked past Harry to the hall where he yelled into Jenny's room that their ride had arrived. Harry and Eric sat in silence again as they waited for Eric's friend to walk in, they were lucky and didn't have to wait long.

"Honey I'm home." A cheery voice said as the door swung open and a boy with short blond hair came into view.

"In the kitchen." Eric yelled from beside Harry. The boy swiftly walked to the kitchen patting Eric briefly on the shoulder as he passed him and went straight to the fridge.

"What are you doing in there?" Eric asked, turning his body to look at the boy bent over in his fridge.

"Checking to see if you have any beer." He said.

Harry watched as Eric got up and closed the fridge door on the other boy effectively stopping his search. "You're DD tonight or have you already forgotten?" Eric asked raising an eyebrow and crossing his arms. For a second Harry thought that Eric looked vaguely familiar, but quickly shook the thought away. "By the way Jenny and Harry are coming with." Eric said walking back over to his seat at the table.

"Okay, one question, who's Harry?" The boy asked taking a seat next to Eric at the table. Eric just pointed to Harry who gave a fairly sheepish wave.

The boy looked over and his eyes shot open, he had clearly missed Harry's presence entirely. "Woah, sorry didn't see you there. I'm Liam." The boy said holding out a hand for Harry to shake.

"Harry" he replied.

* * *

><p>A few minutes later Jenny emerged from her room. Harry nearly jumped five feet in the air at her sudden appearance, but Liam just hurriedly ushered them all down to his car shoving them into the tiny elevator leaving all of two inches between the skidish Harry and Jenny. Draco found himself holding back a smirk as he watched Harry trying desperately not to accidentally brush against Jenny, as Liam chattered on endlessly, completely unaware of what was going on around him.<p>

The car ride to the restaurant was just as awkward as the elevator ride. Draco had left Harry and Jenny alone in the back seat, not wanting to piss Jenny off too badly. It seemed that as much as he tried, the image of the great Harry Potter squirming with discomfort and embarrassment still gave him a warm feeling inside. As he glanced in the rear view mirror while answering a comment that Liam had made Draco saw Harry desperately trying not to jump ten feet in the air when Jenny placed her hand on his arm.

Draco had managed to keep himself contained until they were seated at the restaurant and joined by the rest of their group who had come separately that Draco's self control broke. Harry and Jenny had gone to pick up the same set of untensils and their fingers had brushed, and Harry dropped the untensils so violently that Draco had to quickly grab a menu to cover his face as he bit his fist to hold back his laughter. When he finally composed himself and put the menu back down he found himself gaining a few odd looks. Draco gave a small smile and cocked his eyebrow, and ignored the looks as he directed the conversation away from his odd actions.

* * *

><p>As Eric's menu snapped up at the speed of light most of the tables attention went right to him. Harry glared as he heard the smothered chuckles coming from across from him. He knew Eric had noticed his jumpy reactions as was getting annoyed at how much pleasure Eric was gaining from them. When the menu fell back down though the annoyance was lifted as he saw the flush in Eric's cheeks and his blue eyes sparkled just a little brighter than usual. The smile Eric put on to ignore the looks being shot his way had almost gotten Harry lost until he saw the dirty blonde eyebrow raise and that nagging suspicion that Eric was more familiar than he seemed rose back up into Harry's consciousness. Harry was saved from dwelling on this thought as one of Eric's friends begged his attention.<p>

"So Harry, how'd you guys all meet?" asked a blonde girl whose name Harry couldn't remember.

"Jenny and I are partners on a project for Psychology of Drugs, and we've been working at her place so Eric and I just ran into each other there." Harry answered, glancing over to see if Eric was listening. He didn't seem to be though.

"Oh so are you pre-med too then?" the girl asked.

"No, Psych major, neuroscience minor. You?" Harry tried to listen to the answer but he was instead trying to remember this girl's name. This was going to be a long dinner.

When dinner was finally over the entire group made their way to a bar just down the road, and none of them were as happy for that first sip of alcohol as Harry was. Harry was ecstatic to get that calming substance into his system. The bar they were in had a small dance floor so soon enough all of the girls and Liam were occupied, leaving Harry and Eric alone with another of Eric's friends that Harry couldn't remember the name of. Jenny had tried for a little while to get Harry to dance but he had refused. It hadn't been until Eric once again came to his rescue that Jenny had left him alone. The three boys were sitting quite content in a booth until Eric's friend excused himself to go to the bathroom. Almost as soon as he left Eric hastily got up mumbling about getting another drink, and Harry's keen sense of people reading kicked in. Clearly Eric wasn't comfortable being near Harry, especially alone, and this pushed Harry's buttons. He hadn't done anything to the boy and he was determined to find out why he was so disliked by him, so he quickly got up to follow him.

* * *

><p>Draco gave his order to the man at the bar and rung his hands together, letting out a sigh. He let his shoulders drop a little as his tension levels dropped only to have the shoot back up again at that dreaded voice.<p>

"You know you never answered me earlier." Harry's voice was inquisitive and that terrified Draco more than anything.

"I don't know what you mean." Draco said, not daring to turn his head.

"Have I done something to piss you off?" Harry asked as Draco's drink appeared, and he took a large gulp to avoid answering. He could hear Harry sigh next to him. "I don't get you, you clearly can't stand to be near me, but you've saved my ass twice tonight, inviting us with you and then getting Jenny to drop the subject of dancing."

"Trust me I was saving her then, I've seen you dance." Draco snorted into his drink before realizing just what he had said. Panic set in quickly as Draco realized what had just come out of his mouth.

"You've seen me dance?" Harry asked quickly. Draco racked his brain for a good explanation.

Turning to Harry he responded, hoping he sounded more convincing than he felt, "I've seen you at a couple parties." He lied, praying that Harry actually went to parties.

To his surprise Harry seemed to find this completely plausible. "That explains why you seemed so familiar. Look I'm sorry if I've done anything horrible to you I tend to get a little out of control at parties, do a lot of things I shouldn't."

The relief Draco felt was palpable and he instantly relaxed all over, and gave a genuine smile to Harry. "Don't worry about it. You didn't do anything too bad" Draco told him. Harry smiled back at Draco and Draco quickly found himself uneased, he'd never been on the receiving end of one of Harry's smiles and he had to admit they were pretty nice to look at.

"Good. So, you think we could start over?" Harry asked, his smile turning sheepish.

Draco thought for a minute. Harry had clearly found his face familiar, but Draco had given a plausible explanation for that. In fact, when he thought about it, it was entirely possible that they had met at a party once or twice. When Draco went to parties he too had a tendency to forget much of what he did those nights. And really what was the likelihood that Harry would even think that Eric could be a dead man? Making up his mind Draco smiled, "Sure, why not." After all, a few more days and he'd be gone.


	5. Gene

Jenny woke up early the next morning, and she was not in the best of moods. Thankfully, though it was a Saturday, making it a great day for angry revenge. Walking slowly out to the living room Jenny grabbed a speaker from the table that housed their radio and put it as close to Eric's door as possible before turning the radio on as loud as she could. It took all of thirty seconds for Eric's door to bust open, the nearly naked boy tripping out of it at an impossibly fast speed making a mad dash to turn off the noise

Catching his breath from the near heart attack he had endured Eric turned and glared at Jenny who stood calmly with her arms folded. "What the bloody fuck was that about?" he yelled at her.

"For last night, seriously what the fuck was all of that cock blocking about?" she asked. Eric stared at her open mouthed before gathering his senses.

"You're kidding me right?" Eric asked not even half awake. "You nearly give me a heart attack and wake me up at an ungodly hour on a Saturday because I kept you from hitting on a gay guy all night?"

Jenny's mouth nearly hit the floor. "Harry's gay?" she asked shocked.

Eric was clearly pissed. "Yes, you idiot, he nearly had a melt down when I told him you liked him. He's freaked about you getting all awkward around him before you finish this stupid project." Had Eric been awake he probably wouldn't have said all of that, especially after seeing the reaction on Jenny's face, but as it stood he was not a morning person and as far as he could see Jenny had brought this realization on herself.

"Well shit." Was all Jenny could manage to say.

"Yeah." Eric spat sarcastically before stomping away from Jenny back to his room, kicking over the offending speaker on his way.

* * *

><p>Harry had woken up in a good mood, in such a good mood that he had decided to cook breakfast for his roommate, so after his morning run Harry stopped at the grocery store and picked up some food. He was whistling as he cooked, which he quickly stopped when he saw his roommate's clearly hung-over face. Turning quickly he grabbed a cup of coffee and put it down in front of the groggy man.<p>

The brown haired boy grunted a thanks and took a few sips. It wasn't until Harry placed a plate of eggs and bacon down in front of him that the boy spoke any real words. "So where were you last night? You never made it to Dave's party."

"Yeah I ended up hanging with my drug partner and some of her friends." Harry told him, digging into his own plate.

"Yeah well you missed an epic party."

"Clearly." Harry smirked at the pained boy before him.

"Yeah well it's probably best you didn't come, Ben showed up."

"Then thank God I wasn't there." Saying that Ben and Harry didn't get along was like saying that piranha thought meat was okay. When Harry had first gotten to Oxford he had hit it off with a boy named Jamie and the two had ended up hooking up once or twice. Jamie had conveniently forgotten to mention that he was dating Ben at the time. Harry had immediately stopped what they were doing when he found out but Ben still hated Harry for it even though Ben and Jamie had broken up well over a year ago.

"So what are you up to today?" Harry's roommate asked him, as he went to put his dishes in the sink, knowing Harry would happily clean them.

"I've got work in a few hours, other than that I've got no plans. You?" Harry asked.

"Going over to Tim's for some Call of Duty in a bit." Harry nodded and picked up his own plate to begin cleaning up the mess in the kitchen, as his roommate went to shower.

Work on Saturdays was always pretty lazy for Harry. No one ever really came to the bookstore until they desperately needed something for class, so Sundays were clearly much busier, but Harry didn't mind it, he and Gene always got to work together on these days.

"What's got you in such a good mood? You finally get some?" Gene asked as he straightened his hat.

Harry rolled his eyes. "Is sex all you ever think about."

Gene stopped his actions, "So you didn't get any?"

Harry shoved a box at him. "Help me shelve these."

"Seriously man what's got you so chipper?" Gene asked carrying the box over to the aforementioned shelves.

"Just had a good night." Harry said shrugging his shoulders as he put his own box down.

"And no sex?" Gene asked.

"No sex." Gene was a constant reminder that stereotypes could exist; all the boy ever thought of was sex. "Then I don't see how it could be a good night, unless…." Harry looked over when Gene stopped talking. "You laid ground work for possible future sex." Harry rolled his eyes, but couldn't keep a small blush from rising on his face. "Knew it! Good nights always have something to do with sex."

"You think everything has to do with sex."

"I'm not wrong in this case am I?" Gene asked. Harry blushed harder. "See, told you."

"There's ground work for a possible relationship, not just sex." Harry cursed as his blush increased again."

"Sex is still a part of it."

Harry hated when Gene was right. "Shut up." Was all he could manage to say.

"So what's his name, where's he from….come on Harry let's girl talk."

Harry laughed at Gene. "I thought you didn't want to know anything about my sex life." He said.

"Correction I don't want to know any of the detail's I'll gladly embarrass you with questions about crushes though."

"Glad you've got priorities."Harry said under his breath, before taking a deep breath and spilling, "His name's Eric."

"Oooohhh… Eric, good name, I think there's a Disney prince with that name."Gene teased.

"You wanna know this stuff or not?" Harry asked, only slightly pissed.

"Yeah, yeah I wanna know." Gene said before miming zipping his lips shut.

"Yeah well, his name's Eric, and he's pre-law. He's Jenny's roommate." Harry stopped as Gene took a sharp intake of breath. "What?"

"Project partner's roommate, I'm not sure how good of an idea that is." Gene said. Harry sighed and ran a hand through his hair.

"It's a shitty idea actually. Turns out Jenny didn't pick up on my being gay, and apparently has a crush on me."

"Shit man." Gene said.

"Yeah, and this guy is really cool too. He like's Evil Dead and he has Knights by Minus the Bear as his ringtone." Harry was interrupted from continuing his depiction of Eric when a voice called out from the front of the store. "Anyone here?" Gene and Harry both looked up to see who it was. "And he's here." Harry said, his breath beginning to quicken as he watched the boy stretching his neck to see if anyone was in the back.

"That's him?" Gene asked. Harry nodded, not looking at Gene, before heading towards Eric.

"How can I help you?"

* * *

><p>Draco woke back up sometime in the afternoon and couldn't place the sinking feeling that he'd done something stupid. Stretching he turned his head to look at his clock and realized it wasn't there. Groaning he remembered he had trashed it Thursday, nearly giving his phone the same fate on Friday when he had used it as a replacement. Figuring he could forgo a shower Draco got dressed and grabbed his bag, determined to buy a new alarm clock and stop by the library to get a few more books that he needed. Grabbing his bag he headed out of his room, only to find Jenny looking upset at the kitchen table. His sudden outburst that morning came rushing back to him and Draco found that sinking feeling sinking a little further.<p>

"Hey, Jen." He said putting his bag down.

"Hey, made some coffee." She said looking guiltier than Draco.

"Thanks, but I was just gonna grab some while I was out." They stood there for a minute before after looking at Draco's guilty face Jenny broke out into laughter. Draco stood there dumbfounded for a minute before Jenny pulled herself together enough to speak.

"I can't believe I got a crush on another gay guy." Draco cracked a smile as the worry in the pit of his stomach disappeared.

"So you're not mad at me?" He asked.

"Nah, just shocked. I can't be mad at you for trying to keep me from looking like an idiot."

"Thank goodness or you'd always be mad at me." Jenny stuck her tongue out, and smiled at Draco.

"So where you going?" she asked.

"Library and to buy a new alarm clock." He said picking his bag back up and heading to the door.

"Make sure it's durable." Jenny managed to yell at him just as he left.

After getting the books he needed Draco headed to the Campus Bookstore, which was predictably empty. He didn't have a single clue where the electronics would be kept so he looked around for someone who worked there. Not seeing anyone at the counter he called out "Anyone here?"

Not getting a response he craned his neck to see if maybe someone was in the back, when suddenly a response came from behind him. He should have recognized the voice immediately but he was surprised when he turned to see Harry approaching him, with that cheery smile that seemed to be permanently attached to his face. "Can I help you?" Harry asked.

"I'm, uh, looking for an alarm clock." Draco said, unintentionally glossing over the fact that they knew each other.

"They're in the back over here." Harry didn't seem to mind as he led Draco back to the electronics section. The night before had been a pretty friendly night between him and Harry, but no matter how good things were between Eric and Harry, Draco and Harry still had a past that made Draco extremely uncomfortable around him.

"Thanks." Draco said when they reached the aisle with alarm clocks. He picked one up, all too aware that Harry was not leaving. "So what happened to your last one?" Harry asked clearly trying to make friendly chit chat.

"It had a fight with a meat tenderizer and lost." Draco said a small smirk forming on his lips as he remembered the satisfying crunch that it had made.

"A meat tenderizer?" Harry asked a confused look on his face.

"It was the first thing I pulled out of the drawer." Draco said shrugging as he put down the alarm clock he was looking at and picked up another one. Draco glanced at Harry's face, and noticed his cocked eyebrow. "I'm not a morning person." Draco said mater-of-factly.

"I see." Harry said.

Harry wasn't leaving and it was making Draco more and more uncomfortable by the second. Not looking at Harry was only minimally keeping the discomfort down. So, taking the alarm clock he had in his hands Draco turned a little too quickly and stumbled just enough that Harry reached out to steady him. The feel of Harry's skin touching his arm, caused Draco to experience a small freak out and drop the product in his hands, almost jumping back from Harry.

"Shit, sorry."Draco said bending down to pick it up, at the same time as Harry. Once again Draco felt Harry's hand on him, this time, on the unclothed skin of his hand. A literal spark shot out from Draco's skin at the contact and Draco dropped the box and stood up out of shock. 'Shit shit shit!" was all Draco could think as he felt and saw the glamour on his hand twitch.

Thankfully Harry didn't seem to notice too much of Draco's oddities, the small spark, caused by the glamour's twitch seemed to have gone unnoticed, although Draco's clumsy and spastic movements did not. "Are you alright?" Harry asked as he straightened up and handed Draco his box.

"Fine, just a little rattled. I had a fight with Jenny this morning." Draco quickly made up an excuse for his behavior.

"Oh, I hope nothing too bad." Harry said. Draco was noting every movement Harry made, checking to see if he noticed anything off. There seemed to be nothing wrong so Draco tried to calm himself.

"Nah, she was just mad at me for keeping you from her last night." Harry's hand immediately went to the back of his neck, his discomfort putting Draco slightly more at ease. Making Harry uncomfortable was something normal, Harry making Draco uncomfortable was not, so putting things back in their proper place was making him feel better. "She got over it though when I told her you were gay."

Harry's head shot up and his eyes were wide with fear. "You did what?" Draco had to suppress a smirk as he walked back into comfortable territory. "Fuck. How pissed is she?" Harry asked.

"She's not pissed at all." Draco told him.

Harry let out a sigh of relief. Draco gave Harry a half smile, "So, how pissed are you at me for telling her?"

Harry seemed to snap out of something before answering, "Umm, not at all, I guess, I mean it saves me from having the awkward conversation I guess."

"Good." Draco said before walking back towards the cash registers. Draco was trying to ignore the fact that he had actually been a little relieved to hear that Harry wasn't mad at him.

Harry rung up Draco's item and Draco was almost free from the mini hell that appeared whenever Harry was around when a brown haired boy in a bookstore uniform appeared seemingly out of nowhere. "Hey Harry, you still on for that Evil Dead marathon tonight?" The boy asked ignoring Draco.

* * *

><p>Harry gave Gene a questioning look, but Gene's expression didn't change. "Uh, yeah.." Harry answered.<p>

"Awesome."Gene answered quickly moving his eyes from Harry to Eric, as Eric took his bag and was about to turn to leave.

"Uh, um hey Eric." Harry tripped over his words finally catching on to Gene's plan.

"Yeah?" Eric said as he slowly turned to look at Harry.

"You like Evil Dead right?" Harry immediately felt stupid asking.

"Yeah…" Eric answered slowly.

"I'm having a marathon tonight at my place, around 6" Harry glanced over at Gene for confirmation, "would you, wanna come?" Harry stopped breathing as he waited for a response.

* * *

><p>Draco didn't know what to say. For the first time in his double life, having two identities was a painful thing. Draco Malfoy hated Harry Potter and would have spit out a snarky comment and flat out said no, but Eric Abrax, was just getting to know Harry and would have no problem going to a new friend's place, especially for an Evil Dead marathon. Harry was waiting for an answer, and he had to decide, be Draco or Eric.<p>

"Uh, maybe...I've got a lot to do, so I don't know if I'll be able to go out at all tonight." Draco rambled, chickening out from actually choosing.

"Okay, yeah." Harry said. If Draco didn't know any better he'd think Harry was disappointed, and when he thought about it he really didn't know better. Harry was looking at and talking to Eric, he could be disappointed, at having his invite possibly turned down.

"Well let me give you my address, you know in case you decide to come." Draco could have sworn he heard the brown haired boy chuckle as Harry wrote down and handed his address over to Draco.

"Thanks, I'll see you 'round." Draco said before leaving and heading home, fingering the slip of paper in his pocket the entire way back.


	6. Mina

Draco sat in his chair in the living room, feet up on the desk, flipping a small piece of paper over and over in his hands. He glanced at the clock, it read 5:24. Sighing heavily Draco dropped his feet from the table to the floor with a loud thump and slouched, elbows on the desk still staring at the paper, as though it held the secret of life within it.

"Good Lord Eric what are you looking at?" Jenny asked slamming her book down on the couch next to her. "You've been staring at that thing for hours. What is so important about it?"

Draco grunted and ignored her, staring even harder at the paper. He was so engrossed in staring at it that he didn't hear her get up off of the couch and walk over to him. Before he knew it she had snatched the paper out of his hands and was reading it. "HEY!" Draco yelled at her, yet not trying to get it back.

"You've been staring at an address for this long?" She asked, confused.

"Ugh, yes." Draco said putting his head in his hands.

"Any particular reason why?" Jenny asked.

Draco looked up at her and thought about lying. "It's Harry's address." Jenny's expression added shock to its confused look. "He's having an Evil Dead marathon, and asked me if I wanted to go."

Jenny raised her eyebrow for a minute before a look of understanding spread across her face. "Do you like Harry?" she asked. It was just a question, no expected answer implied.

It was Draco's turn to lift an eyebrow. "No." He said plainly.

Jenny studied his face and seemed to find his answer truthful. "Then what's the problem? You love Evil Dead; this should be a no brainer."

Draco sighed. Once again Draco Malfoy was ruining Eric Abrax's life. "I don't know…" he lied. He was getting sick of lying, which was quite a feat considering his life was based around a pretty big one. But how exactly was he supposed to explain that he was terrified of Harry because Harry was possibly the only person on earth who could probably literally take down his façade and consequently ruin his life. Harry was extremely powerful, the fact that he hadn't already seen through Draco's glamours was amazing to begin with, and when his glamours had literally jumped at Harry's touch that amazing feat became a miracle.

Draco let out a silent growl, Harry Potter was a part of Draco Malfoy's life, not Eric Abrax's, and Draco Malfoy was dead. There was no reason for Eric to sit home on a Saturday night when he knew of a place where his favorite movie series was playing. "You know what I'm going to go." Draco said.

"No shit." Jenny said unimpressed.

"But only if you come with me." Jenny turned to look at Draco and saw the nervous look on his face. "You sure you don't like him?" She asked before marking her spot in her book and going to grab her coat.

* * *

><p>"He's not coming." Harry said quietly to Gene as they filled bowls of popcorn in the kitchen.<p>

"It's only 6:02 Harry, he could still show up." Gene rolled his eyes as he saw Harry look towards the door for the hundredth time.

"If he was going to come he would have accepted immediately though. Fuck I shouldn't have given him my address that was stupid wasn't it." Harry angrily emptied another bag of popcorn.

"Dude quit worrying!" Gene was getting close to hitting him, Harry could tell.

"Worrying about what?" asked Harry's friend Mina, one of the people he had managed to dig up for the last minute event.

"Nothing." Harry shot a look to Gene, who simply looked at Mina before zipping his lips. And shrugging.

"Okay," Mina said, "but secrets, secrets are no fun unless you share with everyone." She then picked up a filled bowl and brought it out to the others waiting in the living room.

Harry shoved Gene slightly as he passed by him to go put down two more bowls on the coffee table. "So should we get started" asked a brown haired boy who had his arm around Mina.

Harry took one more look at the door. 'Uh, yeah." Harry turned the TV. on and put the first DVD in. He then walked over to turn the lights out. Just as Gene pressed play and the opening credits began to play Harry heard a knock on the door. Already being up, Harry went to open the door eyes all but glued to the screen. He opened the door without looking.

"Are we late?" the voice made Harry's head snap to see the face. Harry tried his best not to light up.

"No, we just started." He said moving out of the way to let Eric in. It wasn't until Eric was fully through the door that he noticed Jenny was with him.

"Hope you don't mind that I tagged along. You and Eric were both just so adamant about me seeing these, so I figured why not."

"Not at all" Harry told her, glad to see there was very little awkwardness in the exchange. Harry led them to the living room where they all took seats on the floor, Jenny and Harry on either side of Eric.

Harry had a hard time concentrating on the movie. He was so completely aware of Eric next to him. Earlier that day when he had helped him at the store Harry had brushed Eric's hand and had felt sparks, and he desperately wanted to know if it would happen again, but from how jumpy Eric had been after the touch he didn't want to risk it. He based all of his movements of Eric's comfort level which was initially very low, but as the movie went on and Eric got more comfortable Harry found he could do the same.

When the first movie finished Harry introduced Eric and Jenny to everyone else there before beginning the second movie.

* * *

><p>Jenny barely watched any of the first movie; she was too busy watching Eric. He had been acting beyond weird about this whole movie thing. Eric had never been good at lying to her so when he said he didn't like Harry she knew he was telling the truth, so she didn't understand why hanging out with him would be such a problem.<p>

Once they had arrived though Jenny could see why it would be a problem though. Eric may not have liked Harry, but Harry was as easy to read as a book. He was clearly attracted to Eric. How she had missed that she wasn't sure. It was as clear as day. While it made sense that Eric wouldn't want to lead him on, for as long as Jenny had known Eric he had never had a problem turning people down gently.

As the second movie started she watched the two even closer, looking for something she was missing. Maybe something had happened at the bar that they had all missed. She had been pretty tipsy, and was dancing for a good portion of the time. They were left alone for a long time.

She had almost given up when suddenly she noticed Eric nearly jump out of his skin, because of something that had nothing to do with the movie they were watching. Eric ripped his hand out of the bowl of popcorn he and Harry were sharing, effectively covering himself in the stuff.

"Sorry" she heard him whisper to Harry, who had also gotten covered in popcorn. She saw Harry lean in and whisper something back to Eric, who blushed bright red, barely visible in the dark. There was something going on that Eric wasn't telling her and she'd be damned if Eric wasn't going to spill when they got home.

* * *

><p>Draco had been having a pretty good time, once he had calmed down about being near Harry and had managed to forget about everything that being near him could imply. Everything was beginning to feel normal again until his stupid glamours refused to let him forget. He had gone to reach for another hand full of popcorn unknowingly at the same time as Harry. As their hands were both submerged in the buttery snack he felt the shock, of his glamours jumping and out of pure shock he ripped his hand out of the bowl, spilling popcorn over both him and Harry.<p>

Completely embarrassed at his clumsy behavior he whispered an apology to Harry and began to clean up the mess. He hadn't expected Harry to lean in a whisper in his ear.

"Don't worry about it." The words ghosted across his ear and sent a shock all the way down Draco's spine. He blushed bright red, half from embarrassment and half from sheer discomfort, and continued to clean up the spilled popcorn without looking up.

His decision to not look up resulted in his brushing hands with Harry again. Snapping his head up to look at where their skin had touched he instinctively jerked away. It took him a moment to realize that this third spark hadn't been visible. Draco stared at his hand for a moment, before turning his attention back to the movie, forgetting the fallen popcorn, and desperately trying to forget the ghost from his past that had popped back up into his life.


	7. Ken

When the movies ended Jenny couldn't wait to get Eric alone, she wanted more than anything to find out what was going on with him, and staying around chatting with everyone wasn't going to get this to happen. Lucky for her Eric seemed just as anxious to leave, so Jenny made an excuse of needing to get home and Eric went along with it.

Several times on the walk home Jenny almost brought the topic up but she wanted to wait until they were home and Eric couldn't ignore it. When they finally made it home Eric tried to make a bee line for his room, but Jenny managed to stop him dead in his tracks.

"What was with the popcorn?" she asked.

"What…what do you mean?" Eric asked as he turned to look at her, trying and failing to keep the deer caught in headlights look from his face.

"Eric I'm not stupid. Something is going on between you and Harry, and you seem to be the only one aware of it." She paused, but when it was clear he wasn't going to willingly spill his guts she demanded answers. "Damnit Eric, what is going on?"

Eric sighed and walked to the kitchen table and sat down heavily in a chair. "You're not going to believe me."

* * *

><p>Draco rubbed the back of his neck. Jenny knew something was off and he couldn't pussy foot around it anymore. As Jenny sat down next to him he looked up at her and briefly thought about telling her everything. He opened his mouth to do just that, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. He couldn't hurt her like that, he just didn't have it in him, so he told her as much as he dared.<p>

"Harry, doesn't remember me, but I sure as hell remember him." He started. He looked up at Jenny once more before putting his head down and lying as little as he could. "Harry and I went to school together. We never really hung out, or anything. We didn't exactly get along. I was so different back then, physically, mentally, you could say I'm an entirely different person now, so when he didn't recognize me I was actually pretty happy, you know fresh start and all. But I see him and I can't separate past from present and as much as I want to forget everything and start over, I'm going crazy just knowing that I know him and he doesn't know me." Draco took a breath and looked up. Jenny was silent. She was searching his face for something, and he prayed that he had stayed close enough to the truth that she couldn't see the bit of doubt in him.

Draco chewed on the inside of his cheek waiting for Jenny to say something, anything. When she opened her mouth Draco stopped breathing in anticipation. "Wow. That…sucks." Draco let out the breath he was holding.

"Yeah it really does."

"Why don't you just, remind him?" This was the question Draco really didn't want to answer. 'Because I'm not who you think I am and he thinks I'm dead' really didn't seem to be a good thing to tell her.

"Because I like the way things are now, I don't want to go back to all of that. Him not remembering me is one of the best things to ever happen to me."

They both sat there in complete silence, neither knowing exactly what to say. When Draco couldn't take anymore he finally spoke. "Just please don't say anything to him about it."

Jenny nodded and put her hand on his. "I promise." Then she got up and went to bed without another word, leaving Draco alone feeling lower than he'd ever felt before.

* * *

><p>The next few days went back to pretty much normal with Harry coming over every other day to work on his and Jenny's project. Each night he came by he'd stay later and later, hoping to catch Eric coming back from the library, and he always did. The first time they were all in the same room together Jenny had tensed up completely. Knowing what Eric had told her, she felt completely confused, and didn't know how to react. She felt a newfound respect for Eric for not just running out of the room, like she wanted to do.<p>

She was pretty shocked that Eric managed to make conversation with Harry, she wanted to puke just watching it all. Although she and Harry were actually getting along well Jenny had all but made up her mind to break all ties with Harry after they were done with the project, making life for both her and Eric a lot less awkward. Harry however didn't seem to have the same idea.

"So, my friend Gene is having a party at his place Friday, you and Eric should come. It can be a kind of celebration for finishing this project." Harry said as he put another piece of their model together.

"Sounds fun, I'll see if we can make it." Jenny answered not looking up from the work she was doing.

"Cool. I know Gene would really like it if you came." Jenny glanced over at Harry, and bit her lip. She really wanted to make a joke about Harry wanting Eric there, but didn't want give him any false hope.

"So you don't want us there, just Gene does." Harry blushed and Jenny found her response adaquet.

"I don't actually think I'm going." Harry said. Jenny whipped her head up to stare at him.

"What? Then why ask me and Eric to come?"she asked.

"I've got a friend visiting and I'm not sure how big they are on parties, Gene asked me to make sure you two got the message though."

"Oh." Jenny was saved from saying anything else, by the door slamming open and a crazed looking Eric sprinting through the house straight to his desk.

* * *

><p>'Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck…' was all Draco could think as he ran from the library all the way home, as fast as he could.<p>

He had been sitting in the library doing research for a paper when he noticed a very pale hand sitting on his book. Looking up to see who the hand belonged to, Draco was confused when no one was there. He looked back down, but the hand was still there. He stared at it for a good long while before noticing the tan wrist it was attached to, the tan that perfectly matched the one he was used to seeing in the mirror every day. The second the information penetrated his brain Draco panicked like he had never panicked before.

Slamming his books closed and haphazardly throwing them into his bag Draco sprinted home as fast as he could. As he ran he wracked his brain for anything that could help him. After starting his life as Eric, Draco had gotten rid of just about everything magical he had only keeping things that might be necessary in the future, mainly a book he had been given when in hiding about all things that could go wrong with glamour charms. He had at one point committed it to memory, but over the years the information seemed less important as nothing went wrong, and now for the first time in over 5 years something was going wrong and he couldn't remember anything from the book.

He didn't even look up when Jenny called out to him as he ripped apart his desk looking for the book he knew had to be there somewhere. Finding the book at the very bottom of one of the desk drawers Draco kissed it and continued his sprint to his bedroom, only barely managing to spit out a "Can't talk" response as he locked himself in.

He flipped through the pages of the book looking for anything that seemed like it would help. About half way through the book he found something, and let out an uncharacteristic whoop.

* * *

><p>"Is he okay?" Harry asked as Eric ran at a full out sprint into his room.<p>

"I have no idea." Jenny said. They sat on the couch for a minute until they heard a whooping noise coming from his room. "I guess it's good news?" Jenny said looking suspiciously towards Eric's door.

"I guess so. Uh, well I should get going." Harry said as he gathered his books. As he reached the door Eric came bolting out of his room again, this time headed directly to the kitchen.

"Jenny, do we have any tomato paste?" He didn't even look over as he searched through every cabinet within his reach.

Jenny and Harry both stopped and looked at each other before Jenny turned to answer. "Uhh, yeah, it's on the fourth shelf, I think"

"Why do you need tomato paste?" Harry asked. The sound of Harry's voice stopped Eric dead in his tracks. The blonde boy turned and his eyes grew wide as they locked with Harry's.

"Project." Squeaked out of the tall blonde, who then backed up slowly, stopping only when he knocked into the fridge.

The poor boy looked terrified as he stared into Harry's eyes. Holding back a sigh, as everyone in the area seemed to be frozen solid, Harry walked into the kitchen and reached up to the shelf Jenny had indicated and pulled down a tube of tomato paste. "Here." He said handing the tube to Eric, who again stared at it for a minute before taking it. "Uh thanks."

Harry just nodded and left saying goodbye to Jenny on his way out.

* * *

><p>"What was that abou…" Jenny began asking as she turned, only to find Eric missing again. She stormed over to his room and banged on the door. She waited impatiently for a moment before Eric opened the door. "What the fuck was that?"<p>

"I needed tomato paste." Eric said leaving the door open and going to sit on his bed.

"That's not what I mean and you know it. You acted like Harry was about to kill you, when you saw him." Jenny stared down at Eric, who clearly looked ashamed of his actions.

"I know. I wasn't expecting him to be there and I freaked, I'm sorry."

Jenny sighed, "You don't have to apologize to me, but he's gonna want an explanation at some point."

"I know."Eric said head slowly making its way into his hands.

"Eric, are you sure there isn't something bigger going on here than just a weird past?" She had to ask. It didn't make sense for Eric to be having such strong reaction to Harry just because they didn't get along well back in school.

Eric let out a small moan. "I don't know."

* * *

><p>Draco was glad that the tomato paste had worked as fast as it had, when he placed his head in his now both tanned hands. They still smelled like the stuff but they looked normal and that was all that mattered.<p>

"Eric are you sure there isn't something bigger going on here than just a weird past?"

'God, if only she knew.' He thought, but he didn't know what to say. "I don't know." He settled for, still holding his head in his hands, refusing to look at Jenny, who simply sat down next to him and put an arm around him, comforting him.

* * *

><p>Harry threw his stuff down by the couch, went into the kitchen, grabbed a beer from the fridge and sat down, banging his head on the table repeatedly.<p>

"Bad night?" his roommate who was currently eating a slice of pizza across from him.

Harry lifted his head momentarily to half glare at the boy. "You think?"

"I have a gift for noticing these things." The boy smiled as he took another bite.

"I thought we were starting to get along." Was all Harry said before twisting off the cap of his beer and taking a long swig of it.

"This that guy Gene was talking about the other day?"

"Yeah." Harry quickly downed half of his beer in another gulp.

"Sorry dude." The boy said ripping a bit of his crust off and shoving it into his mouth.

"You always know just what to say Ken." Harry threw a fake smile at him before downing the rest of his beer. "I'm going to bed."

"Night man!" Ken yelled as Harry walked away.

Harry laid on his bed staring at the ceiling. He was really beginning to like Eric, the guy was smart, funny with a sharp tongue, they had tons in common, and to top it all off he was gorgeous. Unfortunately for some reason that Harry couldn't figure out, the boy hated him, or was terrified of him, or some combination of the two. He just didn't get it. He hadn't done anything that he could think of, although Eric did say they'd met at a party, and it was possible he'd done something stupid then, but certainly nothing that would cause Eric to fear him, at least he didn't think so. Angry with life as it was, Harry flipped angrily over and buried his face in his pillow, desperately trying the get some sleep, at least Hermione's visit this weekend would cheer him up, maybe she could even shed some light on the situation.

* * *

><p>The next day Draco found himself nervously standing in front of the school's bookstore, debating on whether or not to go inside. He needed to apologize to Harry but didn't want to go to his apartment so he had settled for trying to catch him at work. Taking a deep breath he went in and walked up to the cash register.<p>

"How can I…oh hey, Eric right?" the brunette at the counter asked as he walked up.

"Yeah, and you're Gene right?"

"Yup. So what can I do for you?" The friendly guy asked.

"Uh, is Harry here by any chance?" He asked, feeling a blush rising up his neck.

"Nah sorry, he's not on today, but I bet you could catch him at his place." Gene's smile made Draco uncomfortable so he just nodded, offered his thanks and left.

* * *

><p><em>New Text – Gene.<em>

Harry's phone blared to life, in front of Ken. Being nosey by nature Ken grabbed Harry's phone and opened the message.

_Heads up, Eric's headed to yours, thank me later._

Ken closed Harry's phone and looked around at the mess of the apartment, before sighing and starting to clean, "This guy better be worth it." He mumbled as he picked up a pair of smelly socks from the floor.

* * *

><p>Draco really didn't want to do this, but he wasn't big on putting things like this off either, so he stood in front of Harry's apartment door, deciding if he'd knock. This was the second time he'd stood somewhere deciding things and he was getting sick of it. If Harry wasn't there this time he wasn't getting an apology. Draco lifted his hand to knock, but had the sudden thought that being there made him look like a stalker so he quickly dropped his hand and turned to leave.<p>

"Eric?" a voice yelled at him.

Draco turned around, only to see Harry, dripping in sweat, pulling head phones out of his ears. Draco went to respond but his mouth had gone dry. Harry, clearly back from running, was wearing only a pair of shorts and some running shoes, with an arm band holding an mp3 player in place, this left his tanned and muscled chest and abs out in the open, with beads of sweat trailing down, and dragging Draco's eyes with them. Draco was so lost in watching one of those beads of sweat he didn't notice Harry walking towards him and almost missed what he was saying.

"What are you doing here?" Harry asked, and Draco shook his head clear.

"I umm I was just stopping by to uh apologize for last night. I was having a really weird day and you being in the apartment just kinda freaked me out I guess." He said, trying to look anywhere but at Harry's body.

"Oh, yeah. Don't even worry about it. Trust me that's not the weirdest reaction I've ever gotten from someone." Draco watched as Harry ran his hand through his hair.

"Uh, cool…well I'm glad you're not mad at me" Draco nearly smacked himself at how stupid he sounded. Harry just laughed as he opened the door that Draco had been too afraid to knock on. "I'll see you round." He said trying to make his escape.

"You wanna come in?" Harry asked, as Draco turned to leave.

Turning back around Draco accidentally looked directly into Harry's eyes, and found himself having to shake his head clear again. "Sure." He wasn't sure why he accepted, he just followed Harry into his place.

* * *

><p>Harry tried not to let his shock show as he entered his apartment and found it spotless. He walked over to the fridge and opened it up to get a bottle of water and found a note.<p>

_You're welcome. –K_

Harry gave the note a quizzical look and then turned back to see Eric standing in his clean apartment. "Would you like anything to drink?" He asked motioning to his own water bottle.

"Huh? Oh no thanks." Eric answered.

Harry closed the refrigerator door and realized he had no idea what to do now. Inviting Eric had seemed like a good idea at the time, but now he had no idea what to do.

"You're not wearing your glasses." Eric stated after a moment of awkward silence.

Harry instinctively reached up to his face and felt for the glasses he knew weren't there. "Oh yeah, they're not that great for running, so I wear contacts." It was at this point that Harry realized that he was almost naked, and he began to blush. "Uh make yourself at home, I'm just gonna go throw some clean clothes on." He said putting down his water bottle and heading to his room.

* * *

><p>Draco had no idea what he was doing. Things had been weird enough when he was freaked about Harry exposing his secret, especially after seeing what he'd done to his glamour charms, but seeing Harry half naked and sweaty, with no glasses, just added to his pile of problems. Now he was standing in Harry's apartment alone, with pants that were slightly tighter than when he had put them on that morning. Things were not going well for Draco.<p>

Draco took a seat on Harry's couch and had just managed to calm himself down when Harry walked out of his bedroom in tight jeans and tight shirt, neither of which Harry had ever worn around him before. The sight effectively undid Draco's calming work as Harry reached for his water bottle, causing the too small shirt to ride up a little. Draco found himself shifting in his seat as Harry walked over to sit near him on the couch.

"So, no classes today?" he asked hoping to get his mind off of what he had so clearly missed over the last two weeks.

"No, we don't have Drug Psych until Tuesday so I'm free for the day. What about you?" Harry answered seemingly much more comfortable than Draco felt.

"My classes are done for the day." The two fell back into an awkward silence as Draco tried not to think about how good Harry looked without his glasses.

"Have you heard the new Girl Talk album?" Harry asked, standing up and walking over to a stack of cds on the other side of the room.

"What's Girl Talk?" Draco asked, watching Harry.

"He's this mash up artist. His stuff is really good." Harry said before picking up one CD and putting it in the player. As the songs began to play Harry came back to sit on the couch. Thanks to the music the silence didn't seem so strange.

They had been sitting, just listening to the music for a while when Draco couldn't take the silence anymore. "This is a really long song." He commented.

"Actually we're on like the fourth track." Harry said.

Draco looked over to the player, "no way."

"Yeah, this CD is probably about 16 tracks long, but they all fit together seamlessly." Harry informed him. Thankfully that was all it took to break the string of silences as Harry and Draco began to actually talk.

* * *

><p>It wasn't until Harry's roommate came back, that Eric mentioned that he had work, and needed to get going. "Oh are you and Jenny going to Gene's tomorrow?" Harry asked as he walked Eric to the door.<p>

"I think so." Eric answered, then said his good byes to both Harry and Ken.

Once Eric was gone Harry got the chance to ask Ken about the apartment.

"Why'd you clean it?" Harry asked.

"Gene texted you saying Eric was headed over. I figured that was the guy you were going alcoholic over last night so I thought I'd do my part to get you laid." Harry gave Ken a very awkward look.

"You've been spending too much time with Gene."

Ken just shrugged. "Oh here's your phone." He said tossing a confused Harry back his phone.


	8. Hermione

The next night Draco stood surrounded by the entire contents of his closet completely dumbfounded as to what he should wear.

"Hey Eric are you ready….oh" Jenny stood, putting an earring in just outside Draco's door. "Wow. What's with all the effort?"

Draco flopped onto his bed and spoke to the ceiling. "I like the jackass." Draco didn't have to be able to see Jenny to know that her jaw was getting close to the floor.

"Seriously?" She asked.

"Yes" he moaned. "I went to apologize to him yesterday, and he turned on his stupid charm and now I've got a freakin' crush on him." Draco let out a growl and rubbed at his face.

"Damn, that would be one complicated relationship." Jenny said. Draco could hear her pushing his clothes around in an effort to walk over to him.

"You have no idea." He mumbled. "At least there's no chance of it happening." He said a little louder so that Jenny could hear him.

"I don't know about that" she said finding a clear spot on his bed to sit.

"Just because we're both gay doesn't mean we're immediately going to jump each other." Draco said as he continued to stare at the ceiling.

"True, but the fact that he likes you could cause one of you to jump the other." Draco shot straight up.

"He what?" he asked eyes wide. "Fuck!" Draco grabbed his head again and screamed into his palms.

"Yeah, but on the plus side, he's not going to be at Gene's tonight so you can get drunk and forget about all of this for a while."

"He's not going to be there?" Draco asked looking up.

"No, he said he had a friend coming into town who wasn't too big on parties." Jenny told him.

"God damn it!" Draco cursed his luck in life and picked up whatever was closest to him, and threw it on, no longer caring what he looked like. "Come on lets go get trashed."

* * *

><p>Harry felt as though he was about to burst, as he lay on the couch in front of the television not really noticing the characters moving across the screen. Ken had left for a weekend at home which meant that Hermione could take her portkey directly into his apartment. Harry was becoming impatient waiting for Hermione and kept glancing around himself every few moments trying to figure out exactly where she would most likely appear.<p>

"That show is complete and utter trash" said a voice directly next to Harry's head. In a rather spastic moment Harry tried to turn his whole body and effectively fell off the couch. He righted himself to the sound of laughter.

"Hermione!" he yelled as he stood up and ran around the couch to hug his longtime friend.

"Hey Harry." She said as she as she returned the hug.

"Don't scare me like that!" Harry said as he let Hermione go.

"Sorry, I just couldn't resist." Hermione moved around the couch with Harry and the two sat down on the couch. Taking the remote from the table Hermione turned off the T.V. before turning to Harry. "So, tell me all about this boy who has got you going insane."

"Ugh." Harry groaned, "You've only been here 5 seconds do we have to start in on that right away."

"Yes." Hermione said, folding her hands and crossing her legs, looking very much like a therapist, or a researcher studying a rat.

Harry dropped his head back and gave in, knowing that there was no arguing with Hermione when she looked like that. "Well like I told you, his name is Eric, he's tall, blonde and gorgeous, he likes evil dead, he's funny, and he is the most confusing man I've ever met in my entire life."

"Yes, yes, we've been through all of this before, but it's been a week since we last spoke so I need to know what's happened since then."

"Not much, well there was one new freak out." Harry answered.

"What kind of freak out?" Hermione asked, leaning in and looking even more like a researcher than before.

"Hermione can we please talk about something else?" Harry begged, giving his best impression of an injured puppy. "You just got here and I want to enjoy you being here."

Hermione quickly caved. "Alright, alright I can grill you about this later." At the words Harry's face split into a smile. "So what do you have planned for my visit?"

"I was thinking dinner, movie, some sightseeing."

"That's all?" Hermione asked. This was not the response that Harry had been expecting.

"Well yeah, is there something else you wanted to do?" he asked.

"I was hoping for something a little more fun. Not that movies and sightseeing aren't fun it's just… don't you have any clubs? Know of any parties?"

Harry tried to keep his jaw from dropping. "I had no idea you'd want to do any of that." He told her.

"I'm not a complete party pooper. I am at Uni and I do like to have fun." Hermione said.

"Did you just use the phrase party pooper?" Harry asked, before receiving a very pointed look from Hermione. "Alright, alright, there are a few clubs, but Gene's having a party tonight so everyone I know will most likely be there."

"Great then we'll go to Gene's too." Hermione smiled, "Now where should I unpack?"

* * *

><p>Eric was not having a good time, despite the smile on his face and the genuine laughter coming out of his mouth as he spoke with some guy he'd never met before, it was as clear as day to Jenny that he was not happy. His eyes continually flicked around the room, and anytime the door opened they would dart to it, almost as though he could hear it, which would have been an amazing feat considering the volume of the music blasting through the tiny apartment. Jenny was surprised that none of the neighbors had complained yet. Jenny made her way through the crowded apartment to stand next to Eric.<p>

"I told you he said he wasn't coming, so stop looking for him." Jenny leaned in to remind Eric. Eric simply glared at her and took another sip of his drink. Jenny smiled and shook her head before introducing herself to the boy Eric had been talking to.

The door opened again and again Eric's eyes went straight to it. "Told you he's not coming." Jenny said again

"Who says I'm looking for him?" Eric said glaring again.

"Looking for who?" a voice asked from Jenny's other side bringing both her attention and Eric's over to Gene.

"No one" both Jenny and Eric said.

"Riiight…so you guys having fun?" Gene asked directing his question more to Jenny than Eric.

"Yeah, it's a great party." Eric answered for them both.

"Awesome." Gene opened his mouth to say something else but was quickly distracted by something over their shoulders. "HEY!" he yelled out waving someone over through the massive crowd of people.

Both Jenny and Eric looked over to see who he was calling to, and when they saw who it was both had very similar and shocked reactions.

"I thought you said he wasn't coming." Eric sounding somewhat panicked, said into Jenny's ear as quietly as he could.

Jenny, looking like a dear in headlights could do nothing but shrug.

* * *

><p>"Hey man thought you weren't coming!" Gene said moving around Jenny to hug Harry.<p>

"Yeah change of plans, this is my friend Hermione." Harry said introducing the two before looking up and noticing Jenny and Eric. "Hey! You guys made it! This is my friend Hermione."

Draco took another swig from his cup, this time big enough to empty it, before he shook Hermione's hand, and gave both her and Harry a friendly greeting, before letting them know he was off to refill his drink.

Standing in the kitchen refilling his glass Draco, made sure to make it extra strong. It was truly as if whatever God was controlling the universe had a sick perversion with messing with his life. First, Harry shows up and causes problems with his glamours, then this demon God gives Draco a crush on Harry, and finally because that wasn't enough complication why not throw in Hermione Granger, the smartest witch in the world. Though Harry might not have been able to put the pieces of how weird everything was together, Hermione certainly could.

"How's the jungle juice?" a voice sounded from behind Draco making him jump.

Seeing that the voice belonged to Harry, Draco tried to calm himself as much as he could before answering, "pretty strong," Draco answered as Harry filled two cups with the stuff. "Jenny said you weren't coming tonight." He said, filling what little silence there was.

"Yeah I wasn't sure Hermione'd be up for this but she was dying to come out so.. here we are."

Draco had to admit, if only to himself, that he was also pretty surprised she was out at a party like this one.

"Well I'm glad you came." The words were out of his mouth before he could even think to stop them. He was not glad Harry was there and he was certainly not glad that he was there with Hermione Granger. These were in fact the two worst events that could simultaneously be happening to him right now.

Harry smiled, "Me too."

'FUCK!' Draco thought as he smiled back and followed Harry who had started to move back towards their friends.

When they got back Draco went through all of the normal introduction questions that were expected with Hermione, and once those were over she had thankfully been dragged off by someone to dance. Gene and Jenny had also disappeared at some point leaving Draco and Harry alone which Draco could have been able to deal with if not for the fact that he had refilled his cup several times with his extra strong version of Jungle Juice and was feeling a little freer than he should at that point.

* * *

><p>Harry himself had not exactly been sober before showing up at the party as Hermione had insisted on showing him a new wizard drinking game, that he was either very bad at or very good at depending on how you looked at it. The added drinks that he had after getting to the party didn't help any either, and before he knew it, Harry couldn't stop himself, he was flat out flirting with Eric, there was nothing subtle about it.<p>

"You cannot!" Eric said disbelievingly.

"Can too! Find me a cherry stem, I'll show you. My tongue is like magic."

A drunken Eric was laughing so hard, that he had to place a hand on Harry's chest to steady himself. Harry placed his own hand on top of Eric's and stepped a little closer.

"God you're beautiful" Harry found himself saying as Eric calmed himself.

Eric let out a snort, "I know right?" Eric nearly collapsed laughing again, causing Harry to drop his hand and steady him.

"Let's find somewhere to sit." Eric nodded and Harry led them around the house trying to find somewhere to sit, all of the couches and chairs were full, so Harry led them back to Gene's room, he knew he wouldn't mind.

Closing the door behind them, Harry helped Eric to the bed and sat down next to him. Eric had still not stopped laughing, why Harry wasn't sure, but that laugh was infectious and Harry soon found himself laughing along with Eric.

* * *

><p>When the laughing calmed Draco was suddenly very aware of how bright Harry's eyes were. Harry wasn't wearing his glasses, he noted, that's what made them brighter. He then became aware that Harry's hands were rough as Harry stroked his cheek, and that Harry's breath smelled like cheap vodka and mint. Wait, Harry's skin. Draco's eyes shot open from their half lidded state, and his body jerked back. He put a hand to his cheek and turned away from a very confused Harry.<p>

"Eric, what…I'm sorry" Harry stammered, "I just thought…"

Draco didn't hear the rest "I've got to go." With that he got up and walked out the door and all but ran to the bathroom. He was lucky and there was no one in there. Immediately Draco took his hand from his face and looked at it in the mirror. It was okay. He was still tanned, his eyes were still blue and his nose was still big. Everything was alright, physically at least.

After assuring himself that everything was okay with his face Draco then took a moment to bang his head on the wall. He had almost drunkenly kissed Harry Potter. He was pissed at himself, whether it was for the fact that he would have kissed Harry or the fact that he didn't, he wasn't sure, all he knew was that he was pissed at himself and it had to do with an almost kiss with Harry fucking Potter.

* * *

><p>Harry laid on Gene's bed, thinking only one thing. "Stupid Harry!" He could have sworn that Eric was just as into him as he was into Eric. They had been joking and flirting, and touching each other all night. But clearly he was wrong because he was alone in Gene's room because Eric had once again run away from him.<p>

After sufficiently beating himself up over having just destroyed any progress he had made with Eric Harry picked his face up off of the floor and opened the door to the hallway, nearly hitting someone in the process.

"Sorry," Harry said looking up to see who he had nearly maimed.

"Eric," he exclaimed, both happy that Eric hadn't run out of the party screaming, and mortified to face him again after what had just happened.

"Hey, " Eric said looking completely terrified, a look Harry seemed to get a lot.

"Look Eric," Harry began as it looked clear that Eric was once again going to run from him." I'm really sorry about what happened it's just," Harry took a deep breath, if being drunk was good for anything it was good for getting things out in the open, "I really like you. I mean I think you're amazing and gorgeous and you're all I think about sometimes and I just, fuck I'm sorry."

* * *

><p>Draco had wanted to run away when Harry had opened the door, and he wanted to run and scream when Harry began apologizing, then he just wanted to scream when Harry had voiced that he liked him, and when Harry finished talking Draco wanted to run, scream and generally freak out. But he was drunk and he was confused and he was lost so he did what he thought was best at the time, he just walked away and didn't say anything.<p>

He didn't notice anyone or anything as he pushed his way out of the overcrowded apartment and walked down the stairs. He made it all the way out to the curb before being unable to walk any further. He sat down on the sidewalk put his head in his hands and screamed "FUCK!".

* * *

><p>"Eric?" Jenny had seen Eric leaving the apartment. She had called out to him but got no response, and knew that something was wrong, so she followed him.<p>

Seeing him in a crumpled heap on the side walk she sat down next to him and put a hand on his back. "Eric what's wrong?"

"Everything." Eric said. Jenny sat with Eric for a while until he had gotten enough strength to get back on his feet, then she took him home to sober up.

* * *

><p>Hermione had also seen Eric leave looking more than a little upset. Knowing that the last person she'd seen Eric with was Harry, Hermione left to go find him. Not finding Harry amongst the throngs of people dancing and having fun she began looking in rooms. It didn't take her long to find him in Gene's room sitting on the floor with his head back on the bed staring at the ceiling.<p>

"Harry, what happened? I just saw Eric leave." She said closing the door behind her.

"Of course he left. I tried to kiss him, he ran, so I told him I like him, so he ran some more." Harry deadpanned, still looking at the ceiling.

"Oh Harry." Hermione said, kneeling in front of him, putting her hands on his knees. "I could have sworn he was into you, the way you two were acting all night, why do you think I left you two alone?" she said trying to comfort her friend.

"Yeah well, apparently we were both wrong, and I should have known it too, this always happens, just as I think things are good between us he runs. It happens every time without fail. God it's the popcorn all over again."

"Popcorn?" Hermione asked.

"We were watching a movie, we both reached for some popcorn and when our hands touched he jumped about a hundred feet in the air. He couldn't wait to get out of there afterward either."

Hermione said nothing, she moved to sit next to Harry and held him as he stared at the ceiling feeling like an idiot.


	9. Eric

Jenny had tried for the rest of the night to get Eric to tell her what had happened, but he wouldn't say anything about it, and he looked so broken that she didn't want to push it. So after forcing him to drink a few glasses of water she put him in bed, and stayed with him until she was sure he was asleep.

In the morning Eric looked a little more than worse for wear. Clearly hungover and still upset from whatever had happened the night before . Jenny made his favorite eggs and toast for breakfast and got him a bottle of aspirin.

"Thanks" Eric said as she put the items before him and sat down with her own breakfast.

Once they had begun to eat Jenny couldn't stop herself from asking, "So do you want to tell me what happened last night?"

Eric pushed his food around his plate for a while before finally opening his mouth to speak. "Harry tried to kiss me last night." He didn't look up, but Jenny was sure that the surprise on her face was still visible to him. Before she had a chance to say anything though, he continued, "And I, ran away."

"I thought you liked him?" she said.

"I do, but I freaked." Eric threw his fork down. "That's all I ever do around him. I freak out, and I'm tired of it!"

Jenny wanted to tell him that he was an idiot and that he liked Harry, Harry liked him he should just suck it up and jump the boy, but she knew better. It wasn't that easy, there was a history there, all be it, a fairly one sided history at this point, but it was still a history. Although she didn't know the specifics of it, she knew it wasn't a good one, and that complicated things for Eric. Jenny had no idea of what the right thing to say here was, so she settled for saying what was on her mind. "Eric, you really do like Harry, and I think you should go for it."

"I can't"

"I know you have the whole weird past thing, but he doesn't remember it, and you can clearly see past it well enough to know that he's not the same as he was then. So I say go for it, that or tell him the truth because the boy deserves some kind of an explanation after all you've put him through. I mean really for him to still like you after all of this shit, he deserves at least that. Hell he deserves a Nobel peace prize for that shit."

Eric didn't respond to her. He just looked back at his food. Jenny gathered her dishes and put them in the sink before heading back to her room.

* * *

><p>Draco hated it when Jenny was right. But she was. After everything he'd said last night Harry at least deserved to know why Draco had just walked away, but it wasn't as if he could go up to Harry and just say "Hey Harry, the reason I won't make out with you even though I really want to is because I'm actually Draco Malfoy under a series of glamour charms and when I touch you my magic goes all funny. In fact that's the reason I've been ridiculously spastic every time I've been around you, well see you around campus then!"<p>

Draco sighed and left his dirty dishes on the table and went back to his room and flopped down hard onto his bed.

"OUCH!" he cried out as his head hit something hard. Moving his pillow out of the way, Draco found that the offending hard object was a book. He almost tossed it on the floor, before seeing that it was his glamour charms book. He glared at the book, as it reminded him of how fucked up his life currently was. "Stupid fucking charms that fuck up. What the fuck is wrong with you?" Whether the last statement was directed at the book or himself Draco wasn't sure. He tossed the book aside and closed his eyes, replaying his night of fuck ups in his head. He replayed the feeling of Harry's arm around his waist leading him to the back room where they laughed on someone's bed, the feeling of Harry's hand on his cheek, the smell of vodka on Harry's breath. Draco's eyes shot open. Harry had been touching him all night. All night and not a single inch of his glamours had moved. Draco scrambled up and leaned over his bed grabbing his glamour charm book. Why hadn't his glamours twitched, or messed up or anything, they had when all he did was graze Harry's hand but not when Harry was trying to seduce him, it didn't make sense.

Draco flipped through to the table of contents, and found the page he was looking for, Magical Interference and Malfunctions. He quickly flipped to the page and began to read, very slowly and carefully, determined to find out what was going on.

* * *

><p>Harry was insanely glad that Hermione was there with him this weekend. After the debacle that was Saturday night, she had gladly taken Harry home where they drank and watched a comedy until they were laughing. The best part was that in the morning when Harry was so hungover that he couldn't see straight Hermione was right there with a handy little hangover cure. It was for things like this that Harry wished he had been better at potions in school. They spent the rest of the day, with Harry giving Hermione a tour of the area, and the two of them simply catching up and hanging out. When Hermione left she demanded that Harry keep her updated on his life, and more specifically, Eric, not that she had to say that part out right.<p>

Eric had been a rather large part of their drunken discussions the night before. Harry had vented about how difficult getting Eric to just be normal around him was, and all of the spastic and odd things he did, and how the more confused Harry was by him the more he wanted him around, to figure out what was going on. Hermione had of course pointed out that this type of thing was why Harry was going into the Psychology field. She had also reminded Harry of the way she and Ron had often acted back at school, long before either one of them had had the guts to admit they liked one another, and Harry had to admit that it wasn't too far off of the way Eric acted sometimes, but at least when one of them had finally made a move the other had reciprocated, not run away, Harry was quick to mention. Hermione just shrugged and informed him that once all this craziness and tension was gone that the sex would be phenomenal, and she knew from experience.

Once Hermione was gone though, Harry was left alone with his thoughts, which of course only centered around one thing, the blatant rejection he had gotten from Eric. Really he could have dealt with this whole thing, it wasn't as if he hadn't been rejected before but, there was still the fact that he had to present his project with Jenny. They were scheduled to present on Thursday and had made plans to meet on Wednesday to practice, at her place. He was fairly certain that she wouldn't mind not meeting, or at least changing the location, after all she was Eric's best friend and he had surely told her all about what had happened by now, and after they had presented they would part ways and never see each other again. That last part upset Harry, not just because of how he felt about Eric but because he liked spending time with Jenny too. He thought of her as a friend and he hated loosing friends, they were so important in life.

Harry sighed as he laid in bed trying to sleep. How the hell could one person mess with his life this much?

* * *

><p>Tuesday morning Jenny sat in her Psychology of Drugs class waiting for Harry to come in. Eric had pretty much locked himself in his room for the rest of Sunday and for all of Monday, excluding meals and class time. He had even called into work sick, something he never did, even though he absolutely hated the job. She was worried about him, and being the good meddling friend that she was, she was determined to fix it. But when Harry entered the class room, he didn't even look up to see if she was there, he just walked to the nearest chair and sat down. Jenny thought about getting up and sitting next to him, but when he looked up, caught her eye and buried his head again, she figured that was not the best idea. So she got out her phone and texted him.<p>

"_Hey, we still up for tomorrow night?"_

She watched Harry pull his phone out of his pocket and look back up at her once before opening the text. She also watched him hesitate before answering.

_New text – Harry_ popped up on her screen and she immediately opened the message

"_Sure but any chance we could change location to my place?"_

She had figured that he wouldn't want to come around to her place after what happened so she quickly sent an agreeing text and turned her attention to the front of the class where their professor was just beginning his lecture.

When her classes were over Jenny headed over to the coffee shop to see if Eric had decided to make it into work that day. Thankfully for her, he had. She waved at him when she walked in and went to sit in her usual spot. It didn't take long for Eric to start his break after she walked in.

"Hey, how's work going?" she asked when he sat down.

"Terrible, I just want to go back home and curl up in a ball." He said folding his arms on the table and resting his head on them.

"Poor baby." Jenny teased, petting his head.

"So how were classes?" Eric asked not moving from his position.

"Not bad, the presentations in Drugs were pretty entertaining."

"Did you guys go today?" Jenny could see Eric lift his head, a bit more interested knowing that that was the class she and Harry were partnered in.

"No, we go Thursday." Eric just nodded. "I'm gonna see him tomorrow so we can go over the presentation one last time. Any messages you want me to give him?" Jenny asked hopefully.

"Ugh, no. I just want him to forget I exist." This time Eric buried his face in his arms. Jenny patted his head again and gave him a sad look, not that Eric could see it.

The next night Jenny sat on Harry's couch having just finished their run through of the presentation. They were having a pretty pleasant conversation, both attempting to avoid the one topic they both desperately wanted to talk about. It was Harry who broke first. It took him 20 minutes.

"So, how's Eric?" he finally asked, clearly hating himself for having asked.

"He's, been better." Jenny admitted.

"Oh" Harry said, taking a drink from a glass of water that sat in front of him.

"Yeah, he's still beating himself up over Saturday night." Jenny watched Harry's face and saw the confused look form on his face.

* * *

><p>"Beating himself up?" Harry asked, confused. Eric hadn't done anything wrong, Harry was the one who'd pushed himself on someone who clearly didn't want him.<p>

"Yeah." This answer was not exactly what Harry had wanted.

"Care to elaborate?" he eventually asked. Jenny seemed conflicted, Harry could tell that much, and it only made him want to know more.

Finally Jenny seemed to give in to whatever it was she wanted to say. "Eric, really likes you Harry and it's really got him messed up."

Harry was shocked to hear that he had been right, that Eric did like him too. And however happy that news made him it also made him just that much more confused. "If he likes me then why did he run away when I tried to kiss him, or when I told him I liked him?"

"I told you, it's got him really messed up."

"Yeah well he's got me pretty messed up too." Harry ran a hand through his hair and leant his head back with a frustrated sigh. "Do you have any idea why he ran?" Harry eventually asked.

Jenny bit her lip. "Some, but you'd have to ask him."

Harry huffed, "Yeah because he won't run away from me if I try." He said sarcastically.

"Not if he doesn't have anywhere to run to." Harry lifted his head to look quizzically at Jenny.

* * *

><p>Draco sat at his desk trying to read through the thick case document in front of him, but he couldn't concentrate. He had read through his entire glamour charms book, from cover to cover, and it had been little to no help. It had of course mentioned that extreme amounts of power could cause momentary shifts if someone with a glamour got too close to it, which was what Draco expected caused the first twitch of the charm. Other than that it just listed things like high amounts of stress and poor eating habits, as reasons for malfunction. So as far as he could tell, it was the high levels of stress being around Harry plus Harry's magical ability that had caused the twitches, which was highly unsatisfying. However if this was correct he just needed to be low stress when he saw Harry, carry around tubes of tomato paste when he was high stress and everything would be okay. Not that he had to worry about the next time he'd see Harry, since tomorrow Jenny's project would be over and life could get back to normal for Eric, and Draco could finally rest in peace.<p>

Draco heard the door open but didn't move. He really didn't feel like talking to Jenny right now, and he really did need to finish reading this case, he hadn't even gotten past the opening paragraph. He heard Jenny clear her throat as she walked toward him, and he rolled his eyes in annoyance. "Jenny I can't talk now, I've got to get through this for Line's class tomorrow or he'll kill me."

"Jenny's actually not here."

Draco froze. He should have notice that that throat clear was a little too deep to be Jenny's and that those footsteps had been a bit too heavy but his brain had not exactly been on his side lately. It took him a moment but Draco managed to find the ability to move, and turned in his chair to see that it was in fact Harry who had spoken behind him.

"Harry, hi" was all that he could manage to blurt out, when he finally regained the ability to speak.

"Hey."

"I thought you and Jenny were working at your place." He said, still seated, nearly frozen to his chair.

"We were. We finished a while ago, and Jenny seemed to think it was a good idea that I came here after. So we could talk."

Draco wanted to make a quip about how it would be hard for Jenny and Harry to talk if Jenny wasn't there, but instead he just swallowed and cursed Jenny in his head. "Talk?"

"Yeah." They sat there silent for a long time. Draco's eyes darted to the kitchen, he sincerely hoped they still had some tomato paste in there, because he could feel his stress levels rising as each second ticked by. "Okay I guess I'll start." Harry said after what felt like an eternity. "I like you. A lot."

"You've said that" Draco said before he could stop himself. He let his face form a pained look, that clearly stated he knew he was an idiot.

"Do you like me?" It sounded so childish, and it terrified Draco. He was cornered. Harry very clearly wasn't going anywhere until he got all the answers he wanted. His face and shoulders were set the way they always were when Harry got stubborn. It was something that hadn't changed over the years. Draco had two options then, one he could run to his room and lock the door and pray that Harry left, or he could answer.

Draco stood up from his seat, hoping that it would make him feel less tiny, more confident. It did neither of those things, but still he had made his decision, he would answer. "Yes."

Draco could feel his heart racing, his blood pressure rising, as he waited for Harry's reaction.

"Then why did you run?"

This was the question Draco really didn't want to answer. He wasn't prepared to answer. "It's complicated".

In a split second Draco found his eyes closed, his breathing stopping, his head spinning, and his lips tingling from little electrical sparks as Harry's lips crashed down on his. As soon as it started it ended.

"How complicated was that?"

Draco hadn't opened his eyes. With how badly his heart was racing, and the sparks that he had felt he knew that his entire face must be transitioning back to its original form, but when nothing more came out of Harry's mouth Draco hesitantly opened his eyes, to look at Harry's face. He looked desperate, and determined and just a tiny bit scared. Harry's arms had at some point during the kiss found their way to Draco's arms and were still there emitting the same sparks that he had felt during the kiss, but when he looked over at where their skin touched, there was nothing different. The tingling was there, but nothing was twitching. He looked back up at Harry's face, and saw it start to fall.

Draco opened his mouth to say something, but Harry stopped him.

"You know, don't bother. I'll just go." He dropped his hands from Draco's arms and turned to leave.

Draco didn't wait for his brain to catch up with his actions. He grabbed Harry by the arm, turned him around and kissed him squarely on the mouth. Whether it was out of shock, instinct or want Harry kissed him back. Eventually they broke apart and Draco finally spoke. "I'm sorry I'm such a fuck up."

Harry smiled. "It's okay."

Draco smiled back as Harry leaned in and kissed him again.


	10. Rocco

When Jenny had finally come home hours later, she found Eric alone at his desk reading a thick packet of papers, with Harry nowhere in sight. She closed the door and Eric looked up at her.

"Hey" she said, curious as to what had happened.

Eric got up from his seat and began to walk toward her without saying a word. Jenny was a little scared, as Eric's face was expressionless as he approached her. He stopped right in front of her and she was getting ready to panic and run, when he grabbed her and kissed her on the cheek, smiled and turned back to his desk.

Still shocked Jenny managed to ask, "I take it things went well?"

"Have I mentioned lately that I love you?" was the only response she got as Eric went back to his papers.

"That's it? I don't get any details."

"Nope."

"Why not?"

"Because I'm still pissed at you for cornering me like that."

Jenny thought for a moment, "fair enough, but when you're not mad at me anymore. I get details." She saw Eric nod and smiling made her way back to her room to get ready for bed.

The next morning Jenny had been hoping that Eric would be ready to inform her of everything that had happened the night before, however this thought existed merely because she had momentarily forgotten about Eric's version of a morning routine. Eric blurred by her as she sat at the kitchen table eating her breakfast.

Hopes of getting information from Eric dashed, Jenny walked off to class. Luckily she had class with Harry, hopefully he would be more talkative.

Harry was already there when Jenny walked into class, so she took an empty seat next to him. "I hear last night went well." She said sitting down.

Harry smiled up at her. "Very well." A small blush could be seen creeping up on Harry's cheeks. "We're going out to dinner tonight."

Jenny couldn't help but let her face crack into a smile. "I'm glad to hear it" she told him before their professor walked in and began class.

* * *

><p>Draco tried to pay attention in class, really he did, but he couldn't. His mind was going a million miles a minute. Last night he had kissed Harry Potter. He had kissed him long and hard and it had been amazing. Then, drunk off of said kiss, had agreed to go on a date with him. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, in fact he had gone to bed thinking it was a great idea. However, upon waking up the reality of what a date with Harry Potter meant finally creped its way into his brain. Now his stomach was constantly churning and his fingers constantly twitching toward his phone to cancel his date.<p>

He was flipping his phone over in his hand, while talking himself through what exactly he would use as an excuse to cancel when suddenly it vibrated. He jumped a bit, though luckily no one around him seemed to notice.

_New Text – Harry_

'Oh God' Draco thought after seeing who the text was from, but then he thought that maybe he didn't need to worry so much after all. Maybe Harry was cancelling for him.

He opened the message. No such luck.

_Looking forward to tonight _

Draco put his chin in his free hand as he stared hard at the text. His stomach began flipping again.

'He would be the type to use emoticons', Draco thought, feeling the corner of his mouth twitch upward. His mind went back to last night; after pulling apart from a heated kiss Draco had reluctantly let Harry know that he did in fact have to get back to his work, as much as he was enjoying his distraction. With a giant goofy smile on his face, Harry had told him that he would only agree to allow him to get back to his work, with a promise that he would see Eric the next day. When Draco had agreed Harry's smile had gotten so big that Draco worried that it might rip his face in two. Harry must have looked back at him three times before even reaching the door, on his way out, and Draco himself couldn't shake the smile from his own face, even as he fell asleep.

'One date can't hurt.' Draco thought.

Quickly he typed out a message and sent it to Harry.

_Me too._

After his classes let out Draco went straight to work where his anxieties about his date came rushing back. Draco always counted down the hours until his shift ended, but this time he was also counting down the hours until his date, as he was meant to meet Harry at a restaurant just down the road, as soon as his shift was over at 7.

When his break came half way through his shift his stomach was in so many knots he thought he may be physically ill. Even seeing Jenny walk in didn't help to ease his growing nerves.

"Hey how did your presentation go?" Draco asked.

"I think it went well, but we'll know for certain next week when we get our grades back." Jenny told him putting her bag on the table.

"I'm sure you did great." Draco said.

"mmhmm…" Jenny responded, clearly waiting for him to say something else. They sat in silence for only a brief moment before Jenny couldn't take it anymore.

"So, looking forward to your date tonight?" She asked.

Draco ran a hand through his hair and sighed. "I don't know."

"Excuse me?" Jenny asked.

"I'm beginning to think this whole thing was a big mistake. I never should have kissed him last night." Draco said, trailing off a bit at the end.

"Wait you kissed him?" Jenny said, shocked.

Draco looked up at her and suddenly remembered he hadn't told her what exactly had happened the night before. "Uh yeah, well I mean he kissed me first, but then he tried to leave, and I sort of stopped him, by kissing him again."

Jenny's face went from shocked to confused, "Maybe you should start from the beginning."

"Well Harry cornered me, which I'm still mad at you for" Draco said pointing a finger at Jenny who simply waved it off, "then he told me he liked me, asked if I liked him, I said yes, he asked why I had been acting so weird, I told him it was complicated, then he kissed me. I just kinda stood there, so he went to leave, then I grabbed him and kissed him, then he asked me out and now I'm trying to figure out how to get out of going, because I was stupid enough to say yes."

"You weren't stupid, Eric. You like him, he asked you out, you'd have been stupid not to say yes." Jenny said reaching out a hand and placing it on top of his.

"Yeah, but," Draco made a vague gesture with his free hand "you know." He said, "all the other stuff." He looked around as though someone would be listening in on them.

"Eric, we talked about that. He doesn't remember, this can be a fresh start." Jenny told him. Draco looked down at the table, and took a deep breath. Jenny was right. This was a fresh start, after all that was what being Eric was all about. A new life, a new start. "Besides, it's one date, how bad could it be?"

"You're right," he said, "It can't be that bad."

It was bad. Very bad. Draco had met Harry at Rocco's for dinner, and Harry had been charming and funny and sweet and on top of it all he had looked great. No only had their dinner gone well, but the movie had too. It had gone so well in fact that halfway through the movie Draco had stopped paying attention to the screen and instead focused on the feeling of Harry's hand resting on his and their fingers intertwining on the armrest between them.

Though they had already kissed Harry hadn't made a move in the darkened theater, but on their walk back to Draco's apartment, Draco found himself wishing that Harry had. They held hands all the way back to Draco's apartment and only let go when they reached the door.

"I had fun tonight." Draco said hoping he didn't sound as surprised as he felt.

Harry chuckled, "You don't have to sound so surprised about that." Draco felt a blush rising up.

"Yeah well maybe next time it won't be so surprising" Draco hadn't meant to say it but it had slipped out.

Harry's smile widened. "Maybe" he said as he inched closer to Draco.

Draco's stomach flipped, but he let Harry lean down and when Harry's lips touched his, he kissed back. The kiss broke and the smile on Harry's face was infectious. Draco smiled back and said goodnight, opening the door to his apartment and glancing back at Harry, who waved as he stood waiting for the elevator.

Draco closed the apartment door behind him and momentarily leaned back against it, the smile on his face fading a bit, but not completely going away. He had never been so confused in his life. He had had an amazing date with an amazing guy that had ended with an amazing kiss. Unfortunately that guy was Harry Potter. He didn't have long to think about it though, as Jenny had waited up and was currently smiling at him over a mug of tea in the kitchen.

He pushed himself off of the door and walked over to take the seat across from her.

"So, that good huh?" Jenny asked.

Draco sighed, "Yeah."


End file.
